If you only remember one thing about controlling the timing and speed of charging, it should be this: controlling charging reduces Peak Demand.
Why does that matter? It matters because the amount you pay for electricity consumption during a billing cycle is based on your Peak Demand during that cycle. Peak Demand is the maximum amount of electrical power you consume at any one time during the billing cycle. When your Peak Demand spikes because you are fast charging your entire EV fleet at the same time, with all of your chargers going full bore, your electricity rate for all electricity used during that cycle period increases. Significantly. When that happens, every kWh you consume becomes much more expensive than it has to be, and your utility bill goes through the roof.
It can wreck your energy budget in a big way.
How much financial damage are we talking about?
Consider this: according to a study by the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), the maximum rate you could pay could soar to over 5x the average rate utility customers pay. Think about that. If your Peak Demand spikes because you aren’t using a Charge Management System (CMS) to control your fleet charging at the local level, charger by charger, your utility bill could be exponentially higher than what you budgeted.
According to the NREL study, the impact of spikes in Peak Demand is startling and potentially financially crippling. In the 10 states with the highest Peak Demand rates, spikes in your Peak Demand could increase the rate you pay for each kWh by at least 50% and as much as 570%
No budget can withstand that kind of spike without impacting the bottom line in a big way.
This level of financial risk makes local control of your fleet charging operation more important than ever before. What you need is a way to control charging across your facility’s entire array of chargers. Your CMS needs to deliver control of your OCPP or Modbus-based charger infrastructure across all of your chargers simultaneously and in real time. This limits your Peak Demand, reducing your utility bill.
If your Charge Management System cannot manage your fleet charging across all chargers, regardless of their communication protocol, in a holistic, integrated way, you are just handing over buckets of money needlessly to your utility every month.
Wouldn’t you rather drop that money to your bottom line each month?
So why isn’t every Fleet Manager using a CMS to manage their charging activity in a holistic way? Because no CMS offered holistic management of OCPP-based charger installations. Most CMS software has always treated each OCPP-based charger as its own charging universe. It has treated a five-charger facility as a facility with five discrete charging systems, not one system with five inputs. Fleet Managers have not had a holistic local control CMS solution.
Until now.
EVauto uses its patented software to deliver advanced demand control. Its algorithms control total power for any size charging facility as a single integrated unit instead of treating each charger as a discrete system. Unlike other CMS systems on the market, EVauto Local Control does this while still giving Fleet Managers control over each individual charger. This makes it possible to control charging in a way that limits Peak Demand, provides control, and saves you money, which will make Fleet Managers and bottom lines across the industry very happy.