Electric Nation – EV Drivers and Smart Charging

With around 3.2 million electric vehicles (EVs) in Europe and explosive growth on the horizon, concerns about charging EVs without overloading the grid or increasing peak demand are to be expected. One way to cope with the demand is to upgrade the grid, but it is an expensive and often slow-to-implement solution.

Western Power Distribution, a UK network operator, initiated the Electric Nation project with a group of partners to find a cost-effective alternative. Electric Nation conducted smart charging trials with around 700 EV drivers (during 2016-19) to understand the impact of EV home charging and load management on the electricity network.

GreenFlux offered its smart charging technology to the project, including capacity management with load balancing and a driver charging app. Our back-office system remotely managed charging by reducing the power available to charge or pausing the charge session for short periods of time, to fulfil various trial scenarios.

How smart charging helps

The results showed distribution system operators (DSOs) worldwide that smart charging is a successful strategy for managing local electricity networks and addressing distribution network congestion issues associated with EV charging. The project highlighted that smart charging enables more efficient capacity allocation by a factor of 10 and avoids the need for billions in additional capital for new distribution system infrastructure. In addition, drivers enrolled with the project accepted DSO management and prioritised time or cost for charging, depending on their needs. Consumers were nudged into economising and changing their charging behaviour.

The project was split into three trials. In trial I, drivers experienced smart charging, but without being informed that charging was managed. In trial II, the GreenFlux driver app was introduced wherein drivers could interact with the system and receive insights about their charging sessions. Drivers could request high priority, which overruled the smart charging algorithm and gave a fast charge when required. In trial III, drivers could select a charging preference with different time of use (ToU) tariffs in their app:

1) Optimise time (charge regardless of price)

2) Minimise cost (charge in off-peak period only), or

3) Optimise time and cost (charging could begin during the shoulder period, but would avoid peak price charging).

 

Switch to smart charging

The results stated that the early evening peak in EV charging demand disappeared, confirming that smart charging is highly effective in mitigating excessive demand. Over 60% of the consumers changed their charging preference from the default “optimise time” to “minimise cost” option. Smart charging is beneficial to reduce stress on the local power network, and to avoid the costly investments of upgrading the grid. Read more about smart charging and the Electric Nation project.