Frequently Asked Questions

Load balancing is a very broad concept in EV jargon. For most charging stations it refers to adjusting the charging current in relation to the maximum permissible power. In
other words, it ensures that your fuse is not overloaded.

With Scopt we optimize on many more factors (e.g. solar and capacity tariff) and give you the flexibility to quickly adjust your charging mode in our application.

In addition, with the Scopt app you will also see your total energy costs (home + charging station) and you can later use additional functionalities of an Energy Management System.

Today, Scopt focuses on the largest consumer: the charging station.

Scopt will take into account your home consumption and optimize the charging station based on this.
To give you an idea:

• The average daily consumption in a home is about 10 kWh, but the battery of your car is now about 80 kWh. So you can save a lot more if you focus on the charging station.
• The average quarter-hour peak (capacity rate) for an average home is around 3.5 kW, while a charging station can often charge up to 11 or sometimes even 22 kW. That is why it is important to focus on the charging station, because you can save a lot here. Did you know that the minimum peak for a home is set at 2.5 kW, and that every 1 kW you exceed this value will result in additional costs on your final bill?

Furthermore, the charging station is very easy to control and we can regulate the power at which it is allowed to charge to within a watt. With many small household appliances, it is often not possible to read them, and if it is possible, the connection is often unstable, so that you can usually only switch them on/off. So you will quickly make a large investment for very small savings.

When people talk about large consumers, they often think of washing machines and dishwashers, but these are not such large consumers in comparison. They require a power peak at the beginning, but then work through their session quite economically. Moreover, a wash cycle is now only 1.5 kWh. That is a big difference with the approximately 80 kWh of your EV!

In short, how to save the most by Scopt:

1. It is best to spread your household appliance consumption; our application provides you with insights and tips for this.
2. We will optimize the charging station so that you save as much as possible

We certainly take the consumption of your heat pump into account, but we do not actively control it.

We do this consciously, because a heat pump is not that easy to control or read:

• Many (older) heat pumps cannot yet be controlled.
• The heat pumps that can be controlled can often only be switched on/off.
• The following applies to smart grid-ready heat pumps:
  • The heat pumps are almost always connected to underfloor heating, a medium with a limited output temperature. So you can’t just heat the water temperature to 60°C.
  • You can heat sanitary hot water to a higher temperature, such as heating the buffer tank from 50° to 65°C, for example.
  • Once the heat pump is activated, the boost mode must complete its cycle and cannot simply be switched off.
  • Boost mode will only work if the buffer temperature is low enough, which is not always the case.
  • A heat pump does not have an energy meter as standard, which means you cannot properly demonstrate what savings the control has actually achieved.

Long story short: We will see the behavior of the heat pump in the measurements of the total consumption and anticipate this by adjusting the capacity of the charging station. For example, if your heat pump starts to produce sanitary hot water (and therefore requires peak consumption), we will temporarily let the charging station charge less power or even switch it off for a while.

Currently we do not read your home battery and we do not (yet) actively control it. This is currently under development.

Scopt is a brand-independent system, which unfortunately does not necessarily mean that we can read every charging station.

We support the OCPP protocol , a protocol implemented by most charging station manufacturers. By following this standard, we want to support as many charging stations as possible.

In addition, it is important to know that there are two options for connecting to your charging station:

1. If it is a charging station that is not public or not connected via an administrator, we can configure the charging station directly with the Scopt Cloud. This is often the case if you have purchased a charging station privately and therefore do not need services such as automatic reimbursement of your charging sessions.
2. If the charging station is public or managed by an administrator, we must have a connection with this party. This often occurs with charging stations via the company, where an automatic refund is provided.

Be sure to contact us if you want to know if we support your charging station!

With Powerconnect we have found the perfect combination between a cheap DIY installation and big savings. We read your digital meter via our dongle and read the charging station directly via our cloud. These are the only two parameters we need for our algorithm and the intelligent control of your charging point.

For example, the solar panels are not read directly, as this is not necessary for our optimization and would require an additional implementation cost. We do visualize your solar production in the app by means of our predictions.

For more information about why we do not read household appliances, you can find more information in the Scopt Lite FAQ.

Today, our algorithm focuses strongly on the capacity tariff and optimization of your own solar energy. In the course of 2024, there will be an update with which Scopt will give you the possibility to conclude a dynamic energy contract. You will then receive a new energy price from your energy supplier per hour. In this way, we can charge your car extra when the prices are cheap and, for example, stop charging for a while when the prices are too high.

Today you have three charging modes:

1. Standard –> Here you can charge at full power and we will limit the maximum current so that the main fuse is not overloaded.
2. Peak –> Here we advise a maximum peak from the electricity grid. If you set this, Scopt will automatically ensure that you do not exceed this peak.
3. Solar –> In this mode, energy is only put into the car when there is actually a surplus of energy.

The optimization is constantly evolving and new updates are coming frequently. For example, we are increasingly moving towards an autopilot for your installation, where you as a user no longer have to make any settings and Scopt arranges everything 100% for you.

You often hear people say: ‘What if I have to go somewhere in the evening, will my car be charged?’ or ‘I have to drive a lot of miles for my work, so I will always have to drive to a fast charger.’

Innovation and change always require some time in mentality.

First of all, your car is completely stationary 95% of the time, so there is more than enough time to charge your car. In addition, it is important to think differently than with a car with a combustion engine. You do not always have to wait until the car is empty to ‘fill up’ it. Make it a habit to put your car in when you get home. Then the car can charge in an optimized way at the right times.

Remember that you always have the option to charge at full power. You will have a high peak consumption this way, but if you have to be somewhere urgently, you can always choose to charge quickly.

We look at our optimization from a HEMS (Home Energy Management System) perspective. This means that we always try to optimize and control the total home consumption.

If we were to work with the car’s API, we would see the following disadvantages:

1. You are dependent on the API of the vehicle manufacturer. If they decide to make the API payable, there will be an additional monthly cost.
2. Via the car’s API you can often only start or stop the car, but not modulate it.
3. An API is linked to a car. This means that if someone visits your home, there will be no optimization on this charging session. This could still cause you to have a high peak consumption.
4. The charging station contains a MID-approved energy meter. The meter readings we read are therefore more accurate than the internal meter data of the car.

In many cases you can indeed already make some settings in your car’s app, such as time schedules or maximum power, but be aware that this way you cannot optimize for the sun or peak tariff.

Through our Scopt dongle we have a connection with the home consumption and local energy production. This allows us to apply optimization on a minute basis and feed our algorithm with your historical data.

For example, if you set 4 kW in your car app and you use 5 kW in your home, you will have a peak consumption of 9 kW. With Scopt we will let the car charge a little less when there is a lot of home consumption. Or you can set that you only want to charge when there is a surplus of solar energy.