Zaptec & Ostrom: Cheap Charging with Dynamic Rates

The German green electricity provider Ostrom and the Norwegian market leader for E-car charging solutions, Zaptec, have announced a cooperation in which the smart meters and the dynamic green electricity tariff will bundle the intelligent charging solutions of the Norwegians from summer 2023. The three-part package consisting of a smart meter, communication module, and wallbox is said to enable cost-effective and simple charging processes within one's own four walls, according to the providers. With rising energy prices, charging processes at home would also become noticeably more expensive, but in Germany, electric cars would preferentially be charged at home.

The intelligent measurement system determines electricity consumption, stores, and processes the data. In conjunction with the communication module ("smart meter gateway"), modern electricity meters become intelligent measurement systems. This allows for bidirectional data transmission. Based on this data, the wallbox starts the charging process when the electricity is particularly cheap. For this, a dynamic electricity price is necessary, which is rarely offered in Germany so far. In a dynamic electricity supply contract, there are no static prices per consumed kilowatt-hour as usual, the provider explains further. The contract becomes dynamic through the electricity price fluctuations that are passed on to the customer. The strong increase in renewable energies makes this concept particularly interesting, the provider advertises. In times of plenty of sunshine or on days with strong wind, the electricity price drops, so the argument goes.

"We started with the idea of fundamentally aligning our incentives with our consumers, so they use as little energy as possible and save as much money as possible. Thanks to our dynamic tariff, which forms the basis for our energy management platform, we have begun to introduce intelligent charging processes and natively integrate both the E-car itself and the Zaptec charging solution into our app," explains Matthias Martensen, one of the co-founders of Ostrom.