§14a EnWG: On the consequences of the new law

In residential buildings, there are some consumers that have a high power requirement on a permanent basis and are operated electrically: These include the heat pump or a conventional electric (auxiliary) heating system, the air conditioning unit and also the charging station for the electric car. In order to avoid overloading the existing electricity grid at peak demand times, a law was passed in Austria that allows distribution grid operators to limit the grid-relevant power consumption of these so-called controllable consumption devices to a value of 4.2 kW. In accordance with Section 14a of the Energy Industry Act, operators of charging stations have been obliged to guarantee this controllability for new installations since 1 January 2024.

The connectivity of the charging station is needed to ensure the required controllability. The KEBA KeContact wallboxes are equipped for several types of control: They offer the industry-standard interfaces such as the potential-free contact X1, Modbus TCP and, in the KeContact P30 x-series, the company car wallbox, the PV edition or the new product generation KeContact P40, OCPP as well. From the next software version 1.18, the available charging current on the KeContact P30 can be reduced to 0A or 6A in accordance with EnWG when opening or closing the enable contact X1 if the DIP switches are configured accordingly. Up to and including software version 1.17.1, this was defined as 8A. With the P40, it will be possible to precisely define the charging current via the X1 in 1A increments.

However, due to the new requirement of §14a, an adjustment is already being implemented. This means that control intervention is possible without any problems. If another standard becomes established - no clear specification has been made by the legislator - this will be implemented.