In their efforts to address range anxiety and drive EV adoption, governments in both the US and Europe are offering high subsidies to EV charging networks. For example, NEVI funding in the US has brought about a significant increase in the availability of EV charging stations on US roads. The most recent NEVI quarterly update states that nearly 60% of the most heavily trafficked corridors have a fast charger at least every 50 miles, and that number is expected to rise to 70% by the end of 2025. And in December alone, the EU has allocated an additional 424 million Euros to support EV charging station rollout across Europe.
Naturally, EV charging networks are happy to take government money to finance their growth and expansion along highways, at gas stations and convenience stores and other destinations.
But there’s a snag.
In many cases, these locations don’t have enough electrical capacity to handle EV charging on top of the current electrical needs of the site. This is where smart energy management can make EV charging a viable business proposition.
Smart energy management can:
- Prevent tripping circuit breakers which would put a site in the dark
- Reduce or eliminate demand charges from the servicing utility
- Maximize the throughput of energy stored on a site
- Enable real-time decisions on energy flow based on EV charging load
- Decide from where to source energy depending on time-based energy costs from the grid
- Increase profits for network operators by enabling them to value stack their services
- Reduce energy costs
- Optimize the use of renewable energy
With smart energy management, a site can increase its capacity for EV charging up to 6x without upgrading its electrical infrastructure.
Let’s look at a few different smart energy management scenarios for EV charging sites.
Scenario 1: Smart energy management through the cloud over OCPP
In this simple scenario, you have a set of EV chargers managed by a CPMS such as Driivz’s EV Charging and Energy Management Platform.
The CPMS manages the charging sessions and there’s a lot it can do to optimize how energy is delivered for EV charging.
Dynamic load balancing
As vehicles come and go, the CPMS distributes the energy available for EV charging to balance the load among the currently connected vehicles. Different algorithms can be used to decide how to distribute that energy.
Peak shaving
The CPMS will limit the total power drawn for EV charging to ensure it does not exceed the capacity of the circuitry and trip a breaker switch, while balancing any unmanaged loads on the site.
Time of use considerations
The CPMS may defer EV charging to off-peak hours when electricity rates go down. This may be a manual setting by a driver seeking to lower his energy bills or done automatically by the CPMS that has uploaded dynamic utility tariffs through an integration with the utility servicing the site.
Demand response and energy markets
Using protocols like openADR the CPMS can respond to demand response events to reduce the power for EV charging. Similarly, by learning from historical charging patterns, the CPMS can make bids in energy markets to reduce power drawn from the grid when there is a need to balance supply and demand. Through participation in demand response and energy markets, smart energy management enables the network operator and site owner to generate new revenue streams.
Scenario 2: Smart energy management and onsite battery storage
In this scenario, we’re adding local battery storage managed by an onsite controller.
The CPMS still has full control over the EV chargers, while the onsite controller manages charging and discharging of the battery storage. If the CPMS detects a surge in power drawn for EV charging, it can communicate to the onsite controller via API to discharge the battery and supplement the grid. Similarly, energy drawn from the battery can replace the grid when prices are peaking. When demand recedes, or energy prices drop, the onsite controller recharges the battery from the grid. With approximately 100ms response times, the controller also gives the network operator even more flexibility to make bids in energy markets and enables FFR which requires very fast responses.
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FFR Fast Frequency Reserve mitigates large frequency drops by rapidly providing up-regulation to the power system. This is typically done with load shedding or increased electricity production from fast-responding units. Source: Energinet. Outlook for Ancillary Services 2023 – 2040 |
Scenario 3: Managing the energy flow of a complex site
Once we add unmanaged loads (such as a convenience store, or a carwash) and renewables (such as solar energy), energy management can become quite complex.
The CPMS still manages the energy for EV charging sessions and communicates with the onsite controller through APIs. The onsite controller balances energy flow between the grid, battery storage and renewables as suppliers, and unmanaged loads and EV charging as consumers. Let’s consider some possible situations in this scenario.
If the unmanaged load suddenly draws a large amount of energy (e.g., a car wash starting up), the onsite controller could manage that surge in demand in different ways. It could notify the CPMS via API to reduce the energy for EV charging to accommodate the extra load. Alternatively, it could provide extra energy from renewable sources if the sun is shining, or from the onsite battery on a cloudy day. At times of low demand and when energy rates are very low, the controller could decide to max out the grid capacity to capitalize on the low rates and recharge the battery storage to top it up.
In another situation, if the servicing utility triggers a demand response event, the CPMS could reduce the power drawn from the grid for EV charging and replace that with energy stored in the battery (if there is enough to accommodate current load), or with solar energy if it’s a sunny day.
There are many different possibilities, but they can all be handled between the CPMS and the onsite controller.
Aggregating multiple sites to reap the full benefits of smart energy management
When aggregating multiple EV charging sites, a smart EV charging and energy management platform can shine. These may be several parking lots at a sports stadium or a university campus, or even different sites in a town or a city, each constructed as described in any of the above scenarios.
The CPMS can manage each site separately, controlling the energy flow at the level of the local microgrid. However, considering all the sites as one large system offers the greatest flexibility to bid in energy markets. The CPMS is aware of the available capacity at all the sites, knows which sites have a controller that can respond rapidly to FFR events, and which sites can only accommodate slower response times to participate in FCR events. Using historical usage data to predict demand at any time, it can place bids on energy flexibility markets knowing that one site can always back up another.
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FCR Frequency Containment Reserve, also known as Primary Reserve, automatically responds to frequency deviations in the power system, providing vital stability to the entire European synchronous area when there is a mismatch between consumption and production at the European level. FCR has an activation time of 30 seconds, and the delivery of FCR follows any frequency deviation proportionally. Source: Energinet. Outlook for Ancillary Services 2023 – 2040 |
Smart energy management is more than a cure for range anxiety
While smart energy management can help alleviate range anxiety for drivers, it also presents real business benefits for network operators and site owners. Not only does it increase a site’s capacity for EV charging and improve its resilience to spikes in demand for energy, but it also saves money and opens up new revenue streams to increase the site’s ROI for EV charging.
