Wallbox Introduces Quasar Bi-Directional EV Charger At CES 2020
Credit to Author: Steve Hanley| Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2020 22:17:00 +0000
Published on January 6th, 2020 | by Steve Hanley
January 6th, 2020 by Steve Hanley
Wallbox, a European manufacturer of EV charging equipment, will unveil its Quasar bi-directional charger for residential use at the CES 2020 electronics show in Las Vegas this week. “Quasar is the first charger for the home to allow bidirectional charging. This will help us to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, which is essential because our energy consumption as a society increases every day,” Enric Asunción, co-founder and CEO of Wallbox, said in a press release.
Image credit: Wallbox via YouTube
“To provide a sustainable future, we have to ensure the energy we use is clean. As bidirectional charging offers us the possibility to store energy from renewable sources for later use, it will help us to move towards this future.”
The Quasar is compatible with solar and battery storage systems, which allows customers to optimize how their home uses electricity, a feature that could lead to lower utility bills. It can also send energy from the battery back to the grid, an important advantage in areas where utilities pay competitive rates for locally generated electricity.
Until now, most bi-directional charging equipment has been limited to large commercial applications. The Quasar from Wallbox will retail for $4,000 — about a third of what those large commercial devices cost. It can be installed in one day by a licensed electrician and is compatible with all plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles sold in the US, according to the company.
The Quasar features a compact, modern design that is no bigger than most residential charging equipment. A mobile app allows the owner to fully customize how the Quasar operates. The app makes is simple to specify how much of the energy in an EV car battery is used so there is never a risk of being left without sufficient range for normal driving.
The charger can be equipped with optional facial recognition and gesture controls that can be shared with neighbors or friends but block unauthorized users. It can also authenticate users with Bluetooth, the Wallbox app, or an RFID.
“At Wallbox, we believe cutting-edge technology should be simple, user-friendly, and intuitive. We work hard at packing in intelligent and cutting-edge features while maintaining a smart and compact look,” says Eduard Castañeda Mañe, CTO of Wallbox. “Quasar is a result of breakthrough innovations in materials science in order to get a much higher power in a smaller size. We also have special advances in areas like our inverter in order to make it so efficient in such a small area.”
CleanTechnica reached out to the company to ask whether the Quasar can operate in island mode during a power outage, and got this response from Douglas Alfaro, Wallbox general manager for North America: Quasar is a grid-connected system which allows the interplay between the home, the grid, and the battery in an electric vehicle. It can perform all of these functions provided that it is receiving power from the grid.
‘In a future product update to Quasar, it will be capable of supporting backup power when the grid goes down. In this case, Quasar will disconnect the home from the grid much like a battery storage inverter is required to do in order to power the home safely.” For information about obtaining a Wallbox Quasar bi-directional EV charger, you may contact the company via its website.
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Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his homes in Florida and Connecticut or anywhere else the Singularity may lead him. You can follow him on Twitter but not on any social media platforms run by evil overlords like Facebook.