The Swedish energy and fibre broadband provider Bjäre Kraft installed two CTEK CC3 electric vehicle charge points at its Förslöv headquarters to seamlessly work with its Bastec building management system to efficiently control its use of electricity. 

The system can automatically increase, decrease or stop EV charging altogether depending on other power usage at the HQ and the electricity spot prices or other variables to prevent spikes in consumption and therefore cost. 

The dynamic system uses the CC3’s ability to communicate with such energy management systems via the Modbus TCP ethernet protocol and the chargepoint’s built-in load balancing. CC3 is one very few charge points with this capability.  

Simon Thelin, in charge of the project at Bjäre Kraft, said: “The reason we chose CTEK’s CC3 is because it’s a solid solution. It’s easy to install but has a lot of smart functions that give us opportunities to build and create a system where we control the charging as we like. In addition, it is a good-looking charge point too.” 

The dual output CC3s installed at Bjäre Kraft can each charge two EVs at the same time, each at up to 22kW of power.  

Simon said: “Our vision with EV charging and our Bastec property management system is to start simply and just use the existing energy meters from the Bastec system to load balance the chargers against our main fuse.  

“In the future the plan is to control the chargers based on how much energy our solar panels provide, lower our electricity cost and be able to prioritise which chargers are the most important.  

“Today we have about 30 older charging sockets from another brand, and when the time comes and they need replacing we would like to have CTEK CC3s there for full control over our smart property system.” 

The facility uses Bastec’s property automation system BAS2 (XE16-COM) which is connected via Modbus to the CTEK charge points. The same functionality that will be built up at Bjäre Kraft's HQ is also available in Bastec’s new system, BAS3.  

Johan Odeborg, Project/Sales Engineer at Bastec, said: “It is great to see this facility where our building management system is managing the EV charge points. Together with CTEK and Bjäre Kraft we have successfully tested the installation limiting the power drawn by the charge points depending on the property’s total load. We can now move forward to adding in additional functionality.”  

Bjäre Kraft manages the electricity supply for 14,300 households on the Bjäre peninsula, providing 14,200 customers with a TV service and also has around 9,000 broadband customers in the municipalities of Båstad, Ängelholm, Klippan and Åstorp. 

The company, which has 90 employees, acquired its first wind turbine back in 1990. Since October 2013 it has been selling only green electricity from hydro, wind and solar. It currently has around 7,600 electricity trading customers. 

Simon added: “I’m very excited to see what the future brings for our HQ. With all of the functions CC3 provides I know we’ve got a top player by our side for many years to come.”