This is how the first pan-European smart home payment system is being built

The BMW Group and E.ON have announced that they are moving forward with an intelligent, pan-European home charging agreement.* This is a strategic partnership aimed at creating “Connected Home Charging”, a universal charging ecosystem that will allow customers to charge their electric BMW or MINI in a climate-neutral way.

The partnership will focus on home charging, which is – and will continue to be in the future – the main form of ‘distributing’ electric vehicles and energy, which has the added feature that due to its long duration it lends itself to intelligent control.

The integrated ecosystem developed jointly by E.ON and the BMW Group seeks to promote home charging to new levels. A key element of the ecosystem is the creation of a common interface that combines three complex and previously independent systems: the BMW Group’s electric vehicles, the smart homes of customers and the energy market.

The two partners will cover the entire breadth of the ecosystem, each contributing with its strengths: As part of the partnership, the BMW Group will be responsible for vehicles and payment devices and will manage the customer interface based on their mobility needs. .

E.ON for its part, in addition to providing installation, electricity and connection services to customers’ homes, will also be responsible for ensuring sustainable electricity tariffs and access to the energy market, which plays an important role in the effective control of payment procedures. .

The combination of expertise of both partners ensures a seamless integration of the vehicle into the user’s household infrastructure and a smooth payment process. At the same time, it allows the benefits of energy production in the house – for example, through the solar system – and changes in the energy market to be used for the benefit of the customer.

In the first phase, “Connected Home Charging” will be available in several European countries from the middle of Q4 2023. The intelligent charging control will initially allow two variants: solar-optimized charging, which allows a higher amount of electricity to be used from the system home photovoltaic, and demand-optimized charging that better balances the amount of electricity available at home. In this way the two partners believe that their customers will be able to save money, increase the self-sufficiency of households and improve the carbon footprint of payments.

Additional benefits for customers will be provided in the coming years, which means that the second phase is expected to charge at an improved cost, which will expand the integration of clean electric vehicles and smart homes in the energy system.

Customers will be able to take advantage of price developments in the energy exchange market with a special electricity contract that will enable them to charge at the lowest price whenever possible. This will increase efficiency in terms of payment costs.

At the same time, the customer’s mobility needs are always prioritized, and the optimal charging time window is also determined based on the customer’s scheduled departure time and required range. This option will be available to customers next year.

The partnership will also create the necessary conditions to enable two-way payments in the future. This technology makes it easy to use a clean high-voltage electric vehicle battery as an energy storage device and supply the stored electricity to the customer’s household or the power grid later.

Dual charging technology will enable expansion and improved performance within the ecosystem, with the electric vehicle providing grid support and stabilization services while achieving a more integrated, optimized use of green energy on the grid.

In this way, electrification is becoming an important part of the energy transition: Its acceleration reduces CO2 emissions from the mobility and electricity production sectors. With its use in electric vehicle fleets from 2030, two-way charging can also bring positive economic effects, as the use of batteries in millions of electric vehicles can reduce the need to build large battery storage systems and power plants and natural oils. gas.

Note that the smart home charging partnership comes as a natural continuation of the successful partnership between E.ON and the BMW Group in this area. It is worth noting that the BMW Group operates one of the largest commercial charging networks in Germany, which was created by E.ON in 2019 and currently includes more than 5,500 charging stations in eight locations in Germany. Of these, more than 1,600 are eRoaming enabled and therefore accessible to the public. The expansion of this network is expected to continue in 2023 and 2024: BMW branches in Germany will also be connected to the company’s payment network, which will include more than 6,000 charging points. All charging stations are powered entirely by renewable energy sources.

*E.ON SE is a European international utility company headquartered in Essen, Germany. It operates one of the largest investor-owned electricity providers in the world. The name comes from the Latin word aeon, from the Greek aion meaning age.