Electric Vehicle Charger Load Management System
Dundrenan Apartments Body Corporate
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Project Details
Customer: Dundrenan Apartment Complex
Location: Kangaroo Point, Brisbane
Completion: Nov 2023
Intro
Like so many apartment and townhouse complexes, Dundrenan was never built with Electric Vehicles in mind. So when numbers of the residents began to purchase EVs, the body corporate faced a potentially catastrophic problem – how to prevent exceeding the electricity supply capability of the main switchboard due to the high power demand of multiple fast electric vehicle chargers.
We were able to apply our experience with energy management control systems to provide a smart distribution board that ensures they never exceed their available electricity capacity, even on hot afternoons when residents return from work, plug in their car to charge, and switch on their air conditioners too!
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Scope
A dedicated “smart” distribution panel was designed, assembled and installed adjacent to the site’s main switchboard. All outgoing sub-circuit cables supplying existing EV chargers throughout the car parking area were connected to individual smart circuit breakers in the dedicated panel. Provision was made for a separate circuit to every apartment’s garage, meaning that in the future every resident will able to own and charge an EV in their garage.
A new digital power meter was installed in the main switchboard and connected back to the smart distribution board via a simple Ethernet cable. This meter continually monitors the overall site load and automatically switches off some EV chargers for short periods of time to prevent overloading the building. Thanks to our clever dynamic load management software, equitable sharing of power is achieved such that nobody is without power to charge their car for more than 30 minutes at a time (typical scenario).
In addition to managing the site load, the body corporate now has an easy means of on-charging residents for their car charger usage through in-built metering of every individual circuit. kWh totals are available at a glance on the metering page of the touch screen.
Compliance with the latest Australian Standards was also assured, with the incorporation of Type B earth leakage safety switches which are now mandatory for DC equipment such as vehicle chargers.
The entire project was completed with minimal disruption to occupants, and required only a single brief shutdown to cut-over to the new system.
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