EV Charging
Using AI to support EV chargers and reduce cost
Effi e Vraka, managing director for UK and Europe at Wevo Energy, explains how property managers can electrify parking spaces without worrying about constrained electrical capacity.
E
lectrifying parking spaces in high- density buildings – like apartments and offi ces – is one of the biggest challenges at the heart of our transition to electrical vehicles (EV). Most high-density buildings have hundreds of occupants, thus requiring signifi cant numbers of chargers. Yet almost none of our existing building stock was designed and equipped to supply power to large numbers of electrical vehicles. As we move into the future, hundreds of millions of EVs must be charged in buildings that are currently set up to charge only a handful.
Upgrading a building’s grid connection is one solution. However, it is expensive, slow and often bureaucratic – a situation made worse by the many competing needs of diff erent stakeholders
20 | electrical wholesalerJuly 2024
within a typical apartment or offi ce building. Fortunately, there is a solution. By optimising the resources available and using smart charging management platforms, decision-makers tasked with EV installations can electrify every parking space simply, effi ciently and cost-eff ectively.
Tapping into unused capacity Most buildings have untapped potential in the form of unused capacity. This comes from having to supply suffi cient electrical capacity to meet a building’s peak power needs. To illustrate, the electrical supply to an apartment building must be capable of meeting the building’s needs should all residents be at home at the same time while cooking or heating their homes. In fact, due to changes in working pattern, this scenario might happen only occasionally, leaving many hours in
the day when spare capacity is available. Similar scenarios exist for commercial and industrial sites where the electrical supply has been ‘sized’ to meet peak demands, and assets like lifts, HVAC and machinery are sitting idle for long periods of time. However, there’s no sensible reason for us to keep wasting unused capacity. Property managers can make the most of that energy by using charging management platforms equipped with intelligent load balancing algorithms that take into account the whole electrical topology of the building and cleverly distribute the spare capacity to charge parked EVs. By harnessing this additional capacity, you can signifi cantly increase the number of chargers you can install without spending money on grid upgrades.
Even when a site’s unused capacity is incredibly constrained, it can still be optimised to signifi cantly
ewnews.co.uk
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