The government has come up with a comprehensive plan to address the large electric vehicle fire that occurred in an apartment complex's underground charging station last summer, but the measures that can be felt on the front lines are still insufficient.


Various countermeasures are being implemented, but above all, all slow chargers installed in underground charging stations do not have a charging control function, so they continue to overcharge, which is one of the causes of electric vehicle fires.

Currently, all slow chargers nationwide do not have a charging control function, but many apartment complexes have warning signs posted at the entrances to underground parking lots recommending charging to 80-90%.

However, none of the chargers have this feature.

Electric vehicle owners are encouraged to do this from within the vehicle itself.

Accordingly, expectations are growing as the Ministry of Environment announced that it will distribute 'smart control chargers' that can control charging by utilizing communication functions on slow chargers with charging control functions.

In this situation, it was revealed that the smart control chargers that the Ministry of Environment began installing after August 2024 for the purpose of contributing to electric vehicle fire prevention are being installed in a situation where the charging control function has not yet been finally verified.
<br /> Among the two functions of the smart control charger, the verification of the communication function for collecting battery information was focused on, and the actual charging control (SoC control) function was neglected, so verification of this has emerged as an important criterion in the future.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Environment went to the sites where smart control chargers were installed to directly check whether the smart control chargers installed by business operators were effective in preventing fires and began to identify problems. It was also revealed that the importance of this was notified to charging operators in the recent subsidy guidelines.

I would say it is quite encouraging.

It is no exaggeration to say that the negative effects of installing charging facilities are continuing as many apartments and buildings are reluctant to install electric vehicle chargers and are preoccupied with fire prevention and disaster prevention measures for existing chargers.

Therefore, the author has been arguing that the charging control function should be firmly installed so that the underground parking lot charging station can autonomously set and manage the charging rate (SoC) in the range of 80-99%.

As the Ministry of Environment's slow charger subsidy guidelines state, "charging must end when the SoC reaches 100%, and there must be a recharge prevention function to prevent automatic recharging after charging is finished," it can be said that this also implies that the charger charging rate can be specified within 80-90% as needed.

This means that, if necessary, you can set the charging rate of electric vehicles in your apartment's underground parking lot to 80-90% and use it uniformly.

Currently, there are cases where there is confusion in verification and methods for various communication functions, and chargers that are not easy to control are being distributed.

Therefore, as announced at a recent meeting of the Ministry of Environment, simple regulation is needed rather than complex technical verification.I guess all you have to do is just build a foundation.

All charger-related companies, including those that have already received a 70% subsidy, will need to have a charging control display on all smart-controlled chargers and verify charging rate control, etc. when charging electric vehicles on-site.

In other words, it is possible to check whether 80-99% charging is actually controlled through on-site inspection using any electric vehicle, not a specific model.

That is, you only need to check whether it is actually performed.

And the technical verification method or specific method can be left to the subordinate certification agency, and the development method can be left to the relevant charger company.

Smart chargers capable of charging control will be able to control the charging rate on-site to immediately prevent overcharging, and will also significantly reduce anxiety in apartment complexes.

In particular, since all of the underground charging stations in apartment complexes across the country are slow chargers without this charging control function, the most valuable effect will be achieved if the smart control chargers, which are newly subsidized, are used as a replacement for existing chargers.

Since many local governments and apartment residents are already willing to shoulder some of the costs themselves, we hope that the Ministry of Environment will allow the installation of alternative smart-control chargers without restrictions.

Unlike the cost of expensive rapid chargers, the replacement cost of smart control chargers is only about 1 million won, so I am confident that even if only some subsidies are provided, local governments and apartment complexes will encourage replacement through cost conservation.

Of course, the introduction of battery information collection function in smart control chargers is expected to require more than three years of continuous efforts and overcoming compatibility issues until effectiveness is achieved.

Through this process, a big data platform for collecting and analyzing electric vehicle battery information was developed.You can finish it later.

This part may be considered as supplementary data for the future that cannot be seen, rather than electric vehicle fire prevention that can be felt on the front line.

The Ministry of Environment said that it is most important to supplement the charging control function so that smart control chargers can continue to contribute to fire prevention without confusion in the field and to continue to expand charging facilities that contribute to fire prevention.

In particular, it would be the icing on the cake if priority was given to replacing all slow chargers in existing apartment underground parking lots across the country with smart chargers with charging control functions.

We look forward to the Ministry of Environment’s continued activities in the future.