Charging management is key to the EV grid integration conundrum

With an influx of investment being poured into electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure, the number of EVs and EV fleets is on the rise.

With this comes a key question about how to best manage your charging while preventing blowouts, asset wear and tear and power outages. Charging management, says Mark Braby, is the key.

There is an equation that needs to be formulated to best approach EV grid integration in light of the expanding fleet electrification we have been, and will continue to, witness.

And the key to such an equation?

Charging management

Charging management was explored by Mark Braby, global head of EV, payments and partners, alongside Manish Mohanpurkar, senior researcher at NREL.

They talked about it as part of the Itron Inspire EMEA webinar series.

As Braby explains: “Charging management is key to the whole equation. It’s going to be all about managing constraints for utilities with constraints and needs for end customers. Fleets have huge commercial constraints to think about when they think about charging. The last [thing] they want is for their vehicle to get stranded because of a load charge when delivering their goods or even when they have kids on the bus.”

Although there are numerous charging options for individual vehicles – one can partially charge at home, drive to work and get an extremely fast charge while making a coffee stop – the same cannot be said for fleets.

Fleet constraints

Mohanpurkar detailed the complexities of EV charging, especially when it comes to fleet management and the myriad of considerations.

“There is a growing avenue of charging options for EV users. Even if they get to work with a not-fully-charged EV, they still have options of charging elsewhere to make up for it over the course of the day.

“A quick XFC boost (…) will get them the necessary SOC requirement. But when it comes to fleets, the equation changes. Rather than thinking about charging, [medium and heavy-duty EV drivers are] thinking about how to transport their goods. And there are several other things they need to look into. Things like local resources or behind the meter storage options.

“In general, fleets have a lot more constraints and urgent needs at times for their fleet to be up and running.”

So how does this tie into charging management?

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Managing grid constraints

To best manage grid constraints, there needs to be a smart plan in action. Grid modernisation needs to become at the forefront of our considerations for EVs, Braby stated, especially when it comes to distributed energy resources (DERs).

“We really need to be thinking about how to integrate distributed energy resources and EV charging at the same time – that has to happen now. Once a plan has been put into place, there has to be intelligent management, software management.

“It involves a lot of data, a lot of optimisation and being able to manage a multivariate type of control and orchestration; managing multiple stakeholders.”

For the fleet, this would mean considering an entirely new paradigm to keep their customers happy while also educating them on how to approach EV charging.

What’s critical is the investigation of supplementing charging with DERs and then optimising our energy footprint. It is essential that the grid is kept stable and sustainable as more EV’s join it.

Braby said: “Once a plan is in place, [we need to operate] to that plan. Our vision is that there’s a push-pull between utility needs, grid needs and end-customer needs. That’s going to have to come together and be managed by intelligent software. And that’s how we accelerate EVs and EV charging.

“For utilities, there is a massive load opportunity. If we come at it with a blunt object and say we’re just going to size transformers to the peak or size substations to the peak, things are going to get very expensive. Projects are going to get delayed.

“[Whereas] if we think about it intelligently, with managed charging solutions, I think we can keep all stakeholders happy and accelerate the equation.”

This Itron Inspire EMEA session as well as all other sessions are available on demand.