The growth of EVs and their chargers is happening faster than many people can comprehend. Utilities need solutions that can address EV challenges in a comprehensive manner.

Utilities have been instrumental in promoting the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). With increasing numbers of EVs on the road, the real-world data highlighting their impact is becoming clearer. 

There is a growing need for you and others at your utility to access comprehensive tools that can provide visibility into where the EVs are, enable better forecasting, and optimize charging across locations on your grid.

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Three reasons why EVs are challenging to plan for:

• Exponential growth is hard for everyone to get their heads around. Today, the number of EVs is doubling every 2-3 years. That means if you are supporting 10-20 EVs connecting to the grid per day now, then you need to be ready for ~300/day in less than a decade. In other words, the solutions you're building need to be ready to scale quickly.
• EV use cases vary tremendously. If a utility executive asks their planning or program team, "Are we ready for EVs?" They're likely to get varying answers. Depending on whether you're focusing on high-powered public charging coming onto the system, fleet depots growing over time, or residential charging clustering and spreading out, you're going to have unique perspectives. EVs are showing up almost everywhere in your service territory.
• EV charging doesn't look like other loads. For EVs, the challenge is not system peaks but non-coincident peaks that vary by location and are constantly changing as EV adoption increases. EVs don't look much like thermostats, where air conditioners are steady, consistent loads driving peak on the hottest days of the year. They also don’t look like stationary batteries that do not need to handle the complexity of customer behaviors around meeting mobility needs. EVs are in different places during different times, and charging patterns aren’t uniform.

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EVs are fundamentally a distribution system challenge, which means utilities need to act quickly.

Integrating EV loads was probably just beginning to register on your team’s radar a couple of years ago. And even today, EV adoption is something that you and your team have a pretty good handle on. 

EV forecasts, however, are causing more stress for operations teams. Particularly when many folks may still be learning about the differences in charging types and locations.

The good news is that EV drivers are typically charging less during peak hours than anyone was expecting. There is also flexibility in EV load. Bigger batteries and faster charging mean people plug in to charge less frequently.

However, EVs and their non-coincident peaks can be large, and the potential impacts on distribution systems can be significant. EV adoption is often clustered. It does not take too many EVs for a good portion of transformers to be overloaded in residential neighborhoods. And due to the power requirements of EVs, the request for at least 1-2 MW of new load in a fleet parking lot is happening more frequently and often on feeders that are almost fully loaded. 

These are not new insights. These are issues leaders at utilities have been calling out at workshops and in articles for more than a decade.

However, we are now crunched for time. Preparing for EVs more than a decade ago when they were just showing up on the road is very different from preparing when EV adoption is beginning to hit the hockey stick on the exponential growth curve.

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Your current technology stack isn’t designed to accommodate high levels of electrification, and it isn’t your fault

The software stack is becoming increasingly complex across all large businesses - utilities included. Few folks at your company have full insight into how all the pieces fit together. Even fewer people have the information needed to figure out how to integrate all the new pieces being bought and built to accommodate DERs and meet increasing customer expectations.

With EV adoption coming quickly and being unique compared to other loads, you have two options. 

Option 1: Try to work with your team and existing partners to overhaul components of the technology stack to accommodate EV charging.

Option 2: Choose a solution that is well-suited to meet your needs: being able to communicate with customers, enable better planning, and optimize charging for the best times at any location. 

Supporting the EV transition is fundamentally too important to get wrong. You need a solution built to support the unique aspects of EV charging load while reducing friction for customers. What we’re seeing is that many utilities are looking to buy a comprehensive EV solution to solve the problems that they see ahead.

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What is an Electric Vehicle Management System (EVMS)?

An EVMS is, at its core, simple. It's a platform intended to support utility EV planning and optimization needs while meeting customers' expectations with EVs.

WeaveGrid's EVMS is designed to meet utility needs. It uses our patented approach for distribution optimization (DISCO) and serves all types of EV loads, including single-family residential, multifamily, fleet depots, and public charging. Unlike many market players, we focus on integrating directly with the software systems of automakers and charging companies. 

Our platform takes weeks, not years, to set up and launch and start delivering value. Over time, our EVMS is capable of integrating into your tech stack, and we can start in the areas where we can create the most value— with your ADMS and Enterprise DERMS, AMI and SCADA, CIS and other IT and OT systems. 

WeaveGrid is actively deploying its EVMS at many utilities leading on electrification and look forward to talking and working with your team more. Curious to learn more? Book a demo.

Contributed by Dave Bend, VP of Business Development and Client Growth at WeaveGrid