DC energy meters certified!

LEM has become the first company to receive the German certification for the EM4TII (Energy Meter For Traction) DC energy meters.

In the 21st century, the world faces a huge challenge to reduce CO2 emissions. The impact of CO2 on global warming has been proven, and the progress of new technologies in power electronics and battery chemistry is accelerating. The introduction of an alternative to the combustion engine driven car, the electric vehicle (EV) is a massive advance in technology and the market is undeniably booming.

The steadily increasing battery capacity has helped the EV market grow, but the most appealing use cases remain short journeys in an urban setting. To make electric vehicles the vehicle of choice for the wider market and to reduce the carbon footprint of private transport, a network of fast chargers must be installed, allowing users to make long trips without worrying about range or the charging time. Energy suppliers have already started to deploy fast charger networks (30min, 150kW) and expect ultra-fast chargers (>10 min, 350kW) by 2020. Fast and ultra-fast chargers provide direct current (DC) as they are directly connected to the battery.

As from April 2019, new regulations will enter in force that require energy providers to only charge energy delivered to the car (it is normal not to pay the losses related to the performance of the charger). Today only certified AC energy meters exist for billing electricity to the end user.
As DC solution, LEM proposes the proven DC meter for railway applications called EM4TII which has successfully passed all required tests and has obtained the type approval certification, the Baumusterprüfbescheinigung by PTB (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt) last month. In parallel, for the future requirements of the market, LEM will introduce soon a new ‘LEM Direct Current (DC) Meter’, much more compact than the previous version of the EM4TII. This new meter will be as accurate and universal, whatever the topology of the charging station (up to 600 kW).

Mr Mathieu Béguin (Product marketing engineer) summarises, “Originally developed for railway applications, we identified an opportunity to adapt the EM4TII DC Meter to comply with German regulations. Information about the new DC Meter will follow in due course.”

@LEM_Inc #PTB @NapierPR