Smart charging: cheaper for the consumer, better for the grid

Grid congestion - an ‘overloaded’ electricity grid - results in delays to building projects and sustainable initiatives. However, research by energy scientist Nico Brinkel has found that ‘smart charging’ of electric vehicles presents a potential way to deal with the problem. “But then grid operators and car manufacturers should put their shoulders to the wheel.” Brinkel will defend his dissertation at Utrecht University on 5 September 2025.

Most electric vehicles are plugged into their charging station around the same time every day, when their drivers arrive home from work in the early evening. “That’s one of the peak load moments for the power grid”, explains Nico Brinkel. “The demand for electricity then exceeds what the grid can supply, potentially resulting in power outages.” For this reason, Brinkel studied options for delaying charging until there is more capacity available on the electricity grid.

Grid tariff system

Brinkel’s research shows that there are several ways for grid operators to encourage the adoption of smart charging. “It’s a better - and cheaper - solution than reinforcing the grid. We may still have to do that eventually, but smart charging could give grid operators some valuable time.” Brinkel advocates for the introduction of a smarter grid tariff system. “That is the fee that power grid users, such as households, pay to the grid operators. You could make that fee dependent on the moment the user consumes electricity from the grid. That would make charging during off-peak hours cheaper than during peak hours. This financial incentive would distribute the demand for electricity more evenly over the day, reducing the burden on the power grid.”

More fair

There are also other benefits to a more dynamic grid tariff system. “A household in a small flat with a low electricity consumption currently pays the same fee as a grid user with a private charging station and a high electricity consumption, despite the latter contributing significantly more to peak grid demand.” He argues that introducing grid tariffs that are based on one’s actual consumption pattern would be more fair to the small consumers. Next to saving grid tariff costs, smart charging can reduce the energy costs of consumers. Brinkel calculated that the charging costs of consumers with a dynamic energy contract would reduce by 25%.

Charging pauses

It is theoretically possible to delay charging until off-peak hours, since electric vehicles are generally connected to the charging station for far longer than the time required to charge the batteries. “You could automatically stop charging during peak hours, for example, and then resume charging during off-peak hours. The user wouldn’t notice the charging pause, because the vehicle is connected to the station for longer than is strictly necessary.” But to realise this in practice, all vehicle models must be able to deal with charging pauses. Brinkel found that many older models, and even some newer models, lack that ability. When a charging pause is applied, they turn to sleep mode, and as a consequence they can’t resume charging later. To avoid such problems, operators of charging stations only reduce the charging speed during peak hours, instead of pausing the charging, even for the EV models that can handle charging pauses.” That limitation makes smart charging only half as effective as it could be. Therefore, Brinkel argues for the introduction of technical standards for smart charging. “New model EVs should comply with those standards before they are allowed on the road.”

Back to the grid

An even more advanced form of smart charging is ‘Vehicle-to-Grid’, in which the vehicles can feed electricity back to the power grid. “But only a limited number of EV models have this capability, and the charging station has to be compatible as well.”