Load management

How it decides

A current sensor sits on the main feed and reports what the house is drawing in real time. The controller compares that against the service rating, and when the headroom shrinks it throttles the managed load or pauses it entirely.

The managed load is almost always the EV charger, because it is the one big load that genuinely does not care when it runs. A car plugged in at seven and needed at seven the next morning has twelve hours to absorb a four-hour charge.

Why this is allowed

A load calculation asks what the house could draw at once. A managed load changes the answer, because the system now physically prevents the simultaneous peak the calculation was protecting against.

That is the whole argument for it. The charger is not being trusted to behave; it is being electrically prevented from exceeding the ceiling.

What you give up

Charging speed, occasionally, and only when the house is already busy. On a January evening with the oven on and the heat running, the car may charge slowly or pause. Most people never notice, because they are asleep for the part that matters.

What you do not give up is the option to upgrade later. Load management does not preclude a service upgrade; it defers one.

When it is the wrong answer

If the house is at its limit before the charger is even considered — an older service already running electric heat and a range — managing one load does not create room that was never there. And if you are adding several large loads rather than one, the arithmetic stops favouring it.