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The generator company expands its footprint in clean energy
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Generac — a power and energy management company known for its gas-powered home backup generators — has released its first electric vehicle charger. The new charger joins the company’s home battery solution in its move toward clean energy. Generac also owns Ecobee, a smart thermostat company.
The Generac level 2 charger costs $649 for the 40 amp version or $699 for the 48 amp and is compatible with all EVs on the market today, including Teslas’ with an adaptor. It has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity for managing scheduled charging with the Generac EV charging app.
A Power Sharing feature lets you connect multiple chargers to one circuit (up to 25), and the system will manage the charging so as not to overload it. A Power Boost feature lets you monitor the subpanel or breaker to avoid tripping it.
According to Greg Wischstadt, Generac’s VP of Connectivity, the charger is made by Wallbox, a leading manufacturer of EV chargers, but it will run Generac’s software. Generac invested in the Wallbox late last year.
With the addition of the EV charger, Generac is continuing its move into electric power that has been accelerating since 2020 when it launched its PWRcell home battery — a competitor to the Tesla Power Wall.
In early 2022, the company also hired Brian Dow, Tesla’s director of engineering, as its VP of Clean Energy. It’s been steadily expanding the battery’s solar storage and home backup solution capabilities, including integrating it with its home standby generators.
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While it has Wi-Fi connectivity, the new EV charger doesn’t have any smart home integrations, and the company isn’t yet part of the new Matter smart home interoperability standard — which just added support for EV chargers.
Generac’s standby generators do integrate with Ecobee Smart thermostats to show status and help with energy management in a power outage, and its propane tanks can also display fuel levels on the thermostat’s screen. However, Wischstadt says there are no current plans to integrate the new EV charger with Ecobee.
Still, you can see the pieces potentially falling into place here for an integrated energy management system that’s controllable from inside the home using Ecobee’s touchscreen interface.