Powering the era of e-mobility with smart charging
E-mobility is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to model the future of decarbonised road transport and the world has started seizing it. Year after year EV sales have broken new records worldwide. This week, the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) EV Outlook showed that 14% of all new cars sold worldwide in 2022 were electric, compared to 9% in 2021.
China, the EU, and the US are the pioneers of this EV-olution, as confirmed by the US Inflation Reduction Act and the EU’s 2035 target for the phase-out of internal combustion engines. According to Eurelectric-EY newly released report, there are 8 million EVs driving around Europe, with new sales capturing over 20% of the market up from 17% in 2021.
The future of e-mobility looks bright. Yet, the path towards EV full uptake is not without challenges.
Would you ever buy a state-of-the-art newly designed mobile phone without a charger to make it work?
The same question applies to electric vehicles. Today, while the number of EVs hitting the road is growing at record speed, the same can’t be said for the number of charging stations. The lack of user-friendly charging infrastructures is one of the biggest deterrents to EV potential buyers. Their rollout across Europe is deeply uneven.
Eurelectric report on smart chargers shows that the Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany, and the UK account for 66% of total public chargers whereas ten European countries do not have a single charger per 100 kilometres of road.
Long permitting processes and delays in grid connections are among the main obstacles to a speedier rollout of chargers. Yet, as these barriers progressively fade and the number of chargers ramps up, the biggest hurdle to EV’s full uptake will be balancing distribution grids.
How to ensure a resilient power supply for millions of EVs charging at the same time when renewable generation is low or at times of peak demand? How to better manage the risk of congestion and grid overload? This is when the industry started looking at smart charging, and today you’ll learn all about it.
What is smart charging?
Smart chargers are today the most efficient charging technology for electric vehicles. A charging station is labeled “smart” when equipped with advanced technologies, such as internet connectivity, data analytics, and machine learning that optimise EV charging by adapting charging cycles to power system conditions and drivers’ needs.
How does smart charging work?
These stations are capable of determining the best time to charge your EV by analysing various factors, such as the time of day, electricity demand, grid capacity, the amount of renewable energy available locally, and customers’ preferences.
Whenever an EV is plugged into a charging station, data on the vehicle’s charging time, speed, and power level is sent via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to a cloud-based management platform. Data is then matched and compared to the local grid’s capacity and the energy use of the specific charging site at that given moment. The information gathered is ultimately analysed and shown in real-time by the platform, to help make automated decisions on when it’s best to charge the vehicle.
This way, charging operators can easily track and manage energy usage through the platform, often available on the web as well as through mobile applications. The EV owner, on the other hand, can enjoy a smooth charging experience by monitoring the process and even making payments via the mobile app.
Are there different types of smart chargers?
The answer is YES.
Along with the basic time-of-use charging system – which consists in encouraging consumers to adapt their routines to price signals by communicating when charging is less expensive – there are several other smart chargers that rely on more sophisticated technologies.
-
Unidirectional Controlled Charging (V1G)
This is the simplest type of smart charging. It allows for increasing or decreasing the rate of charging in one direction. Charging rates and time can be modified dynamically by the EV thanks to data connection, thus minimising costs.
-
Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G)
A more advanced type of charging, this technology allows the bidirectional transfer of electricity from the grid to the vehicle’s battery storage and viceversa. This system can therefore be applied to provide flexible power and help balance the grid. -
Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) and Vehicle-to-Building (V2B)
These are forms of bidirectional charging where EVs are used as a residential backup power supply in case of power outages or to enable self-consumption of the energy produced on-site from, for instance, rooftop solar panels.
What are the benefits of Smart Charging?
When we look at the multiple benefits of smart charging, it’s easy to understand why this is the best charging option for cities, EV owners, and distribution operators.
Costumer-friendly
By optimizing the charging process, smart chargers can reduce charging time, improve battery life, and minimize energy costs. Being completely automated, the charging process only requires the driver to input the desired departure time. The system then adjusts to price signals, grid capacity, and battery’s level.
Managing the charging process becomes an easy experience for customers, especially when charging stations are integrated in public buildings or private homes. A home-based smart charging station can allow intelligent and energy-saving management of electricity capacity. For example, smart chargers can pause whenever another domestic appliance has a more urgent energy need, as well as share available power amongst multiple vehicles in an apartment building’s shared parking area.
Climate-friendly
Another benefit of smart chargers is their ability to integrate with renewable energy sources. With the increasing adoption of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power, smart chargers provide an efficient means of charging electric vehicles using clean energy. These chargers can be programmed to prioritise charging during periods of peak renewable energy production, reducing the need for energy from non-renewable sources.
Additionally, smart chargers can be set up to store excess renewable energy in the vehicle's battery, providing a backup power source during power outages. The integration of renewable energy sources and smart chargers offers a sustainable and cost-effective solution to powering electric vehicles.
Grid-friendly
Electric cars participating in V2G services can function as flexibility assets to help boost the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of electricity networks. Flexibility services such as load balancing, peak shaving and frequency regulation can all ease the integration of growing renewable generation into the grid.
A McKinsey study on EV integration in Germany concludes that when local EV penetration hits 25%, peak load can grow by 30% in the absence of smart charging. Using a V1G strategy and time-of-use tariffs, the peak load increase can be reduced by 16%.
V2G systems can transform any e-vehicle into a wheeled battery able to store renewable generation when there is more wind or sunlight a turbine or PV can handle. In a second moment, this energy can be discharged at times of peak demand when renewable generation is lower than energy demand.
In this way, any electric driver has the necessary means to move from being a passive customer to an active prosumer, who gets compensated for providing the energy, previously stored, to the grid.
What is needed for smart charging to become mainstream?
As we have seen, intelligent charging solutions can bring several benefits to several agents. However, there are a number of aspects that need to be addressed in order to make smart charging mainstream.
Infrastructure and clear planning
According to the EY Mobility Consumer Index 2022, lack of public charging stations is the main concern of consumers that prevents them from taking the electric turn: 34% of global consumers, did not buy an EV due to the lack of chargers.
An extended infrastructure is therefore crucial to make the most of smart technologies and drive the electrification of the transport sector. This is why the EU ais at providing 1 million accessible charging stations by 2025 and 3 million by 2030.
In deploying these new chargers, it will be crucial to address the current uneven distribution across Europe, with five countries — Germany, France, Italy, the UK and the Netherlands — accounting for 71% of all European charging locations.
Data
The data collected from smart charging stations also represent a crucial component for smart chargers’ correct functioning. Data allows us to gain insights on infrastructural needs and traffic density. It helps understand the capacity of grid networks and make detailed and informed assessment on renewable energy integration suitability.
Therefore, data is a crucial tool to optimise investments where they are most needed and to keep the whole system up to date.
A smart grid
In Europe, demand of electricity for EVs is expected to increase by 200TWh, accounting for approximatively 5% of total demand by 2030.
To cope with increased load and minimise the need for grid upgrades, alternative mechanisms and smarter solutions are emerging. These include network tariffs, including time-of-use (ToU) tariffs to incentivise EV owners to charge their vehicles at off-peak hours. At the end of 2021, 139 ToU tariffs and services were available across Europe, specifically for EV smart charging.
Vehicle to Grid reaches Munich
V2G potential in 2030 paints an encouraging picture
Private and commercial EVs complement each other well as far as V2G power is concerned: While private vehicles are often parked during working hours and can provide flexibility during the day while loads are high, many commercial vehicles can do the same with their bigger batteries when out of use during nights and on weekends.
In our scenario the cumulative charging capacity of private and commercial vehicles adds up to about 200 MW which represents a significant share of Munich’s peak load of 1,000 MW in summertime – about 20%!
Looking into the different vehicle types we see that V2G capacity of private vehicles offers almost 140 MW during workdays, including about 90 MW of private EVs parked at home and 35 MW of private EVs parked at work. Commercial passenger cars and small vans could contribute up to 50 MW during the day. Our scenario indicates a potential V2G capacity of 10 MW at daytime to 90 MW at nighttime for trucks, and up to 20 MW at night for buses. Trucks and buses are particularly attractive due to their large battery capacities, high-powered charging facilities, and their predictable travel schedules.
Overall, commercial vehicles are expected to deliver between 60 MW during the day and 300 MW overnight. The latter will be of particular interest when more renewable in-feed comes online, and electricity needs to be shifted.
Shaving peaks, emissions, and electricity bills
V2G capacity could provide significant flexibility to Munich’s energy system by 2030. It could be used to balance the city’s load profile, and to store excess renewable energy generated in the surrounding region, for example, to compensate for weather changes affecting solar and wind power. Given the strong differences between the metropolitan area and its rural hinterland, Munich is an interesting test case for using V2G to manage renewable generation and load on a regional rather than local scale; indeed, the scenario suggests that in the future, cities could serve as “batteries” for the surrounding regions.
Load balancing with V2G has the advantage of reducing the need for conventional peak load generation capacity, which would reduce CO2 emissions as well as the overall cost of electricity generation. It would also help planners avoid building oversized renewable generation assets, could enhance demand-side flexibility, and would reduce the need to build additional storage facilities. Finally, V2G load balancing can save additional resources by optimizing usage patterns and costs over the lifetime of BEVs.
The ability to store surplus electricity produced from renewable sources would help avoid further waste due to throttling or shutting down of generation capacity – in 2021, Germany’s energy system had to throttle about 5.8 terawatt-hours’ worth of wind power in order to ensure grid stability. Clean electricity stored in distributed BEV batteries could also compensate for renewable generation shortfalls if weather patterns deviate from forecasts, making conventional supply reserves obsolete.
Overall, the potential of V2G is there for the taking; now, it is up to the regulators to seize the opportunity by creating the legal framework as well as incentives that foster the development of this technology. Then, operators will be able to develop business models to offer tariffs on V2G and sell the aggregated power on spot markets.
Looking ahead
Smart charging is a technology that can allow maximum benefit from EV penetration, both in terms of customer’s service and of impact to the grid.
What Europe needs now are services and regulatory measures that make the most of this valuable
resource to help its transport and energy sectors meet their climate targets. In the context of the current energy crisis in particular, a more broadly established market for smart charging tariffs and services will help to reduce the need for fossil fuels in both the transport and the electricity system.
E-mobility is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to mold the future of carbon-free road transport and the world has started seizing it. Year after year, electric vehicles (EV) sales are breaking new records globally. This week, the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) EV Outlook confirmed that 14% of all new cars sold worldwide in 2022 were electric, compared to 9% in 2021.
China, the EU, and the US are the pioneers of this EV-olution, as confirmed by the US Inflation Reduction Act and the EU’s 2035 target for the phase-out of internal combustion engines. According to a recent Eurelectric-EY report, there are 8 million EVs driving around Europe today, with new sales capturing over 20% of the market – up from 17% in 2021.
The future of e-mobility looks bright. Yet, the path towards a full transition is not without its challenges.
Would you ever buy a state-of-the-art, newly designed mobile phone without a charger to make it function?
The same question applies to an electric car. Today, while the number of EVs hitting the road is growing at record speed, the same can’t be said for the number of charging stations. The lack of user-friendly charging points is in fact one of the biggest deterrents to potential EV buyers and their rollout across Europe is deeply uneven.
Eurelectric’s report on smart chargers shows that the Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany, and the UK account for 66% of total public chargers, whereas ten European countries have less than a single charger per 100 kilometres of road.
What is hampering the development of EV chargers?
Long permitting processes and delays in grid connections are among the main obstacles to a speedier rollout of chargers. In Poland and Slovakia, for instance, it takes two to three years to get a charging station connected to the grid.
Yet, as these barriers progressively fade and the number of chargers ramps up, the biggest potential hurdle to EV’s full uptake will be managing and balancing distribution grids.
How to ensure a resilient power supply for millions of EVs charging at the same time when renewable generation is too low to match energy consumption?
How to better predict and manage the risk of grid congestion or power overload?
These questions are the reason why the energy and auto industry started looking at smart charging, and today you’ll learn all about it.
What is smart charging?
Smart chargers are the most efficient charging technology for electric vehicles. A charging station is labeled “smart” when equipped with advanced technologies, such as internet connectivity, data analytics, and machine learning that use data to optimise an EV’s charging. They can do so by adapting EV charging cycles to the local power grid conditions as well as drivers’ needs.
How does smart charging work?
These stations determine the best time to charge your EV by analysing various factors, such as the time of day, electricity demand, grid capacity, the amount of renewable energy available locally, and customers’ preferences.
Whenever an EV is plugged into a charging station, data on the vehicle’s charging time, speed, and power level are sent to a cloud-based management platform. Data is then matched and compared to the local grid’s capacity and the energy use of the specific charging site at that given moment. The information gathered is ultimately analysed and shown in real-time by the platform, to help make automated decisions on when it’s best to charge the vehicle.
This way, charging operators can easily track and manage energy usage through the platform, often available on the web as well as through mobile applications. The EV owner, on the other hand, can enjoy a smooth charging experience by monitoring the process and even making payments via the mobile app.
Are there different types of smart chargers?
The answer is YES.
Along with the basic time-of-use charging system – which encourages consumers to adapt their routines to price signals by communicating when charging is less expensive – there are several other smart chargers that rely on more sophisticated technologies.
-
Unidirectional Controlled Charging (V1G)
This is the simplest type of smart charging. It allows for increasing or decreasing the rate of charging in one direction. Charging rates and time can be modified dynamically by the EV thanks to data connection, thus minimising costs.
-
Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G)
A more advanced type of charging, this technology allows the bidirectional transfer of electricity from the grid to the vehicle’s battery storage and vice This system can therefore be applied to provide flexible power and help balance the grid. -
Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) and Vehicle-to-Building (V2B)
These are forms of bidirectional charging where EVs are used as a residential backup power supply in case of power outages or to enable self-consumption of the energy produced on-site from, for instance, rooftop solar panels.
What are the benefits of smart charging?
When we look at the multiple benefits of smart charging, it’s easy to understand why this is the best charging option for cities, EV owners, and distribution operators.
Customer-friendly
By optimising the charging process, smart chargers can reduce charging time, improve battery life, and minimise energy costs. Being completely automated, the charging process only requires the driver to input the desired departure time. The system then adjusts to price signals, grid capacity, and the battery’s level.
Managing the charging process becomes an easy experience for customers, especially when charging stations are integrated in public buildings or private homes. A home-based smart charging station can allow intelligent and energy-saving management of electricity capacity. For example, smart chargers can pause whenever another domestic appliance has a more urgent energy need, as well as share available power amongst multiple vehicles in an apartment building’s shared parking area.
Climate-friendly
Another benefit of smart chargers is their ability to integrate renewable energy sources. With the increasing adoption of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power, smart chargers provide an efficient means of charging electric vehicles using clean energy. These chargers can be programmed to prioritise charging during periods of peak renewable energy production, reducing the need for energy from non-renewable sources.
Additionally, smart chargers can be set up to store excess renewable energy in the vehicle's battery, providing a backup power source during power outages. The integration of renewable energy sources and smart chargers offers a sustainable and cost-effective solution to powering electric vehicles.
Grid-friendly
EVs participating in V2G services can function as flexibility assets to help boost the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of electricity networks. Flexibility services such as load balancing, peak shaving and frequency regulation can all ease the integration of growing renewable generation into the grid.
A McKinsey study on EV integration in Germany concludes that when local EV penetration hits 25%, peak load can grow by 30% in the absence of smart charging. Using a V1G strategy and time-of-use tariffs, the peak load increase can be reduced by 16%.
V2G systems can transform any e-vehicle into a wheeled battery able to store renewable generation when there is more wind or sunlight than the grid demands. At any moment, this energy can then be discharged at times of peak demand when renewable generation is lower than energy demand.
In this way, any EV driver has the necessary means to move from being a passive customer to an active prosumer, who gets compensated for providing the energy, previously stored, to the grid.
What is needed for smart charging to become mainstream?
As we have seen, intelligent charging solutions can bring several benefits to several agents. However, there are a number of aspects that need to be addressed in order to make smart charging mainstream.
Infrastructure and clear planning
According to the EY Mobility Consumer Index 2022, lack of public charging stations is the main concern of consumers that prevents them from taking the electric turn: 34% of global consumers, did not buy an EV due to the lack of chargers.
An extended infrastructure is therefore crucial to make the most of smart technologies and drive the electrification of the transport sector. This is why the EU aims at providing 1 million accessible charging stations by 2025 and 3 million by 2030. In deploying these new chargers, it will be crucial to address the current uneven distribution across Europe.
The road transport system we design today should serve us long into the future. To get the fundamentals right, the system must deliver on six priorities:
- Carefully plan distribution, digital, IT and grid infrastructure investments, allowing for expected EV uptake
- Simplify local authority approval processes for installing charging infrastructure
- Enable faster and cheaper grid connections for EV chargers
- Focus on the reliability of charging infrastructure to win customer confidence
- Ensure every publicly accessible charger in Europe is digitally connected and capable of smart charging
- Enable interoperability – any vehicle, any contract, any payment mechanism – across charger networks
A smart integrated grid
In Europe, electricity demand for EVs is expected to increase by 200TWh, accounting for approximatively 5% of total demand by 2030.
To cope with increased load and minimise the need for grid upgrades, alternative mechanisms and smarter solutions are emerging. These include network tariffs, including time-of-use (ToU) tariffs to incentivise EV owners to charge their vehicles at off-peak hours. At the end of 2021, 139 ToU tariffs and services were available across Europe, specifically for EV smart charging.
Moreover, as we look ahead to mainstream adoption, an ecosystem comprising municipalities, local authorities, city planners, charge point operators (CPOs), e-mobility service providers (eMSPs), automakers and network companies has a decisive role to play in bringing together multiple components of a nascent sector to better serve the customer.
Within that ecosystem, DSOs are critical and should:
- Develop reliable forecasts for future electrification, including for transport and other sectors
- Coordinate network planning to integrate EV charging infrastructure into the electricity network, smoothly and cost-efficiently
- Achieve a better understanding of what is happening and where, by improving visibility over low- and medium-voltage networks
- Consider the skill sets, capabilities and investments needed to deliver a fully automated and harmonised customer experience to meet current and future needs
- Track real-time behaviours from the vehicle to the grid and back again
- Become more customer centric and develop innovative solutions that deliver a better EV user experience for all.
Real-time data
The data collected from smart charging points also represent a crucial component for the chargers’ correct functioning. This content allows us to gain insights on infrastructural needs and traffic density. It helps understand the capacity of grid networks and make a detailed and informed assessment on renewable energy integration suitability.
Real-time data will therefore be the critical currency. It will enable utility companies to provide information to the market on the state of the grid, so that the connected ecosystem can, in turn, steer usage and guarantee reliability for users. It will also help optimise investments where they are most needed and to keep the whole system up to date.
In doing so, they can transform the influx of EVs from grid liability into grid asset. This is the vision of a fully integrated and automated future of connected e-mobility.
Vehicle to Grid reaches Munich
Vehicle to grid (V2G) has a vast untapped potential to provide flexibility to Munich’s energy system by 2030 – shows Siemens. It could be used to balance the city’s load profile, and to store excess renewable energy generated in the surrounding region, for example, to compensate for weather changes affecting solar and wind power.
Given the strong differences between the metropolitan area and its rural hinterland, Munich would serve as a test case for this technology to help manage renewable generation and load on a regional rather than local scale. This example suggests that in the future, cities could serve as “batteries” for the surrounding regions.
Load balancing with V2G has the advantage of reducing the need for conventional fossil-fuel-based peak load generation capacity, thereby reducing CO2 emissions as well as the overall cost of electricity generation. It would also enhance demand-side response and help planners avoid building oversized renewable generation assets while reducing the need to build additional storage facilities.
The ability to store surplus electricity produced from renewable sources would help avoid further waste due to throttling or shutting down of generation capacity – in 2021, Germany’s energy system had to throttle about 5.8 terawatt-hours’ worth of wind power in order to ensure grid stability.
Finally, V2G load balancing can save additional resources by optimising usage patterns and costs over the lifetime of a battery-based electric car.
Privately owned EVs and commercial fleets complement each other when it comes to providing electricity back to the grid. While private vehicles are often parked during working hours and can provide flexibility during the day when energy consumption is high, a commercial fleet can do the same when out of use such as at night or during weekends.
In the Siemens scenario, the cumulative charging capacity of private and commercial vehicles adds up to about 200 MW representing around 20% of Munich’s peak energy demand in summertime of around 1,000 MW.
Looking into the different vehicle types, private vehicles could offer almost 140 MW in vehicle to grid capacity during workdays. Commercial fleet could contribute up to 50 MW during the day. Trucks and buses are particularly attractive due to their large battery capacities, high-powered charging facilities, and their predictable travel schedules. A potential V2G capacity of 10 MW at daytime to 90 MW at night-time could be provided by electric trucks, and up to 20 MW at night by electric buses.
The potential of V2G is there for the taking. It is now up to the regulators to seize the opportunity by creating the legal framework as well as incentives that foster the development of this technology. Then, operators will be able to develop business models to offer tariffs on V2G and sell the aggregated power on spot markets.
Looking ahead:
Smart charging is a technology with incredible potential. It can enable maximum benefit from EV penetration, both in terms of customers’ services and an eased impact on the grid.
What Europe needs now are services and regulatory measures that make the most of this valuable
resource to help its transport and energy sectors meet their climate targets.
In the context of the current energy crisis, a more broadly established market for smart charging tariffs and services will help reduce the need for fossil fuels in both the transport and the electricity system.
Eurelectric is committed to facilitating the uptake and expansion of e-mobility across Europe. With its EVision Business Hub, we regularly convene leading players from the power and car sectors to identify shared operational challenges and exchange best practices to reach mutually beneficial solutions.
