EV Smart

Charging
Whitepaper
2 WHAT DOES SMART CHARGING MEAN?
12 HOW DOES SMART CHARGING WORK?

Intelligent EV charging Scaling up the



management charging network

3 WHY DO YOU DO SMART CHARGING?

13 ELECTRIC NATION PROJECT

Implications within The largest smart

the energy ecosystem charging trial
1. Grid constraints Learnings
Enexis
2. Dynamic energy prices
3. User requirements 17 WHAT DOES GREENFLUX HAVE TO OFER?

4. Local renewable energy Demand management

Smart grid in balance via a cloud-based system
 2 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

WHAT DOES SMART CHARGING MEAN?

Intelligent
EV charging
management
The number of electric vehicles (EVs) is growing
rapidly and this proves to have a significant impact
on the electricity network. Smart charging optimises
the dispersion of power and leads to considerable
savings for grid operators, charge point operators,
charge point owners and EV drivers. Smart charging
also requires new revenue models in monetizing the
flexibility of charging EVs.

Up to ten times more charging stations can be installed on

the same grid connection with smart charging. The system
intelligently rotates between the active charge points and there
is no need to upgrade the current grid connection. The balance
of demand and supply is the final optimisation also occurring
through local renewable energy usage.

Each block represents the The maximum group capacity can be set, which may reflect
energy drawn by a single car time-varying grid capacity or price incentives

In essence, smart charging controls

the maximum charge of an electric
vehicle by increasing or decreasing
the maximum charge rate.

Why someone chooses to increase and sometimes decrease is

what makes smart charging interesting.
 3 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

WHY DO YOU DO SMART CHARGING?

Implications within
the energy ecosystem
There are four drivers for that need to be taken into account
when applying smart charging technology:

grid
constraints

dynamic
energy prices

user
requirements

local
renewable energy
 4 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

1. Grid constraints
Power usage by electric vehicles fluctuates over the day, as the At the moment, the best business case for smart charging is
number of vehicles charging on a location may vary throughout to optimise with respect to grid constraints. Electric vehicles
the day and batteries get filled up and gradually stop charging. should be charged in such a way that they do not overload
If demand surpasses the local maximum capacity, power failure any part of the circuitry in the grid. This is usually applied
may be the result. Smart charging adjusts the charge moment in buildings so that companies, for example, do not have to
and speed by considering both the electricity demand of the increase their grid connections, which generally saves them a
building and that of the charge points. lot of money.

The idea is that through a natural division over time (people The same technology could be applied to protect the
coming and leaving at different times), there are only a few distribution grid, which could further reduce expenditure.
moments a day where demand management influences the However, this is currently more complicated from a legal
charge rate. The rest of the day, EV drivers can charge at full perspective because grid operators are not allowed to give
capacity. In that way smart charging enables much faster companies or customers any incentives to do so.
charging than the non-smart alternative, which would be to
always curtail all charging.
 5 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

With GreenFlux’ smart

technology, ten times more
charging points can be
installed without additional
investments in the network.1
Enexis

A great use case features the head office of the Dutch grid operator Enexis.
Enexis supplies electricity and natural gas to customers in the Dutch provinces of
Groningen, Drenthe, Overijssel, North Brabant and Limburg. At Enexis, there was
high energy consumption during peak hours. This caused less energy availability for
charging electric vehicles and delayed the expansion of their electric vehicle fleet.

To solve the problem, the GreenFlux cloud-based platform used its dynamic load
balancing functionality together with an online metering platform. The metering
platform provided the actual energy consumption of the building and the platform
of GreenFlux processed this information for load balancing.

The number of chargers was increased from 16 chargers, connected at a 250A

circuit breaker to 100 chargers at a 400A circuit breaker, with each charging socket
amounting to 32A. Without smart charging, a 3200A / 2200kVA grid connection
would be necessary for this. The investment to have the building accommodate
such a connection were estimated to be around €250,000, which is excluding the
costs of the charging stations itself and excluding the additional yearly grid fees
(~ €75k per year). Using smart charging, the existing 400A circuit breaker could
be used at zero additional costs. As a result, Enexis’ fleet was being charged
intelligently, reducing the load on the power grid while allowing EV drivers to
consistently leave with full batteries.

from16 chargers at 250A roughly €250,000

saved on infrastructural costs, excl.
to 100 chargers at 400A charge stations and annual grid fees
 6 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

2. Dynamic energy
prices
For smart charging to happen, there needs to be a
perfect equilibrium between demand and supply in
the electricity grid.

The energy prices on the different markets reflect the efforts

to achieve that equilibrium. This is e.g. why energy prices are
low in the evening: there is less demand. Storing electricity is
costly for transmission system operators (TSO) and balance
responsible parties (BRP). EVs and stationary batteries do,
however, store power and together form a virtual power
plant. The costs of energy slightly differ per country. As a
rule of thumb, it can be said that if 15% to 20% of a country’s
passenger vehicles would be electric, these vehicles represent
a combined power which equals the total power consumption
of that country. Therefore, connecting them to the grid creates
additional capacity, which TSOs and BRPs can use to adjust
supply and demand.

To have this balance, different electricity markets all run parallel

Energy should be used when to each other. They all have the same goal and that is balancing
the amount of power produced and the amount of power
it is available. There are taken from the grid. In essence, these markets only differ in
their granularity of time. In the different markets, energy can
complex systems in place to be bought months ahead, a day ahead, hours or even seconds
ensure that there is a balance ahead, but subsequently they all serve the system balance.
Surpluses or deficits in power production may lead to steep
between the produced and price variations in different energy markets. As an example, the
consumed power in the day ahead market is taken: If it is expected that more power
will be produced than is needed (i.e. because of a large peak in
energy system at all times. solar power production), the price will go down.
 7 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

When electric vehicles are being

charged as the prices are low, the There are different sources of flexibility available in the market:

demand and supply are balanced ramping the gas- or coal-fired power plants up or down, filling
reservoirs, in- or decreasing production in factories, shutting
on a national level. down wind farms, etc. In spite of this flexibility, there always is
an associated cost such as lower production, lower revenues,
For instance, in the current market, prices are lower at night transmission losses, conversion losses, and more. Some
than during the day because the power is obtained from costs are associated with managing the flexibility of electric
traditional coal power plants and they usually run at nominal vehicles, but these costs are significantly lower than the costs
power. If 20% of a power plant’s nominal power is scaled down, of any other source of flexibility. That, combined with the huge
then the efficiency dramatically decreases. The power plant volumes that a virtual power plant consisting of EVs represents,
operators prefer not to do this, so lower tariffs are set in the makes the electric vehicle a dream-candidate for providing
evening to try and move energy consumption to a later time. flexibility in the power system of the future.
 8 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

3. User requirements
User requirements are an important factor that The drivers can find available charge points on an app displaying
real-time information and charging costs are lowered by
needs to be considered when discussing smart
optimizing the time of charging sessions when the energy prices
charging. To offer EV drivers the best charging are low. Despite the ongoing demand management, users can
experience, there needs to be a way for users to still control their vehicle’s charge rate.
interact with smart charging. This can be done
through mobile apps.

As an example, during the Electric The participants using the Charge Assist
Nation Project, GreenFlux researched app provided by GreenFlux could see
and conducted several trials in different if their charging session was being
scenarios to understand consumer managed and users could request
behaviour towards smart charging (more ‘high priority’ to opt-out of the demand
on page 13). An important learning from management. Charge Assist also gave
Electric Nation was that if someone’s users information on charging sessions.
charging may be impacted by smart Although, from the user surveys, it
charging, two things are crucial: the EV was evident the overrule-option was a
driver needs to be informed about what is must-have, it was rarely used in practice.
Charge Assist app allows users to going on and the option to control the time People only used it when necessary,
select their preferred charging times of charging has to be given when needed. which was not very often the case.
 9 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

4. Local renewable energy

Smart charging takes advantage of local renewable energy sources.
In the event that local energy is available, smart charging can send
this energy directly to the charge point. This results in additional
capacity and faster charging with clean, free energy.

Whether or not there is a financial gain In Germany, it is not allowed to feed back An entirely different motive for this use
when using local renewable energy more than 80% of the peak power of case is that local renewable energy
instead of using the energy from the roof-mounted solar panels into the grid. has the psychological effect of simply
electricity grid depends on national Consequently, there is the incentive to making people ‘feel good’ about
legislation and differs per country. In the use the remaining 20% locally on sunny producing and using their own energy.
Netherlands, there is hardly a business days. These are just two examples, This psychological effect should not be
case for the use of local renewable energy but there are many differences in other underestimated, as drivers need to be
due to net metering. Large volume users countries around the world. supportive of smart charging technology
do not have net metering but the tariff for for it to be a success.
feeding energy back to the grid is about
the same as getting it from the grid, which
does not favour using energy locally over
feeding it back to the grid.
 10 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

Smart grid in balance

In the Smart Grid in Balance Project, already executed in

2013, the consortium partners investigated how decentralized
The ability to control the demand for
renewable energy sources and the changing demand for energy energy makes electric vehicles an ideal
from electric vehicles can interact and, as a result, relieve the
grid load. means of deploying renewable energy
on a large scale without causing
During the project, solar panels, a wind farm, static battery
storage and a combined heat and power (CHP) bio-digester problems for the grid.
were used for electricity generation. In essence, the link between
the varying supply and demand for sustainable energy to charge With a surplus of sustainable energy, the electric vehicle
electric vehicles was researched. The production of sustainable functions as a mobile battery and thus relieves the grid. This
energy depends on the availability of wind and sun, therefore represents enormous potential cost savings, as high costs for
creating peaks and troughs on the supply side. By having grid reinforcement and net balancing are avoided. Although, this
electric vehicles charged in a controlled manner, it could absorb use case took place in the Netherlands, the functionality of this
these peaks and troughs. When the wind was blowing hard, the case cannot be applied everywhere, and local legislation needs
EVs charged faster; when the wind was blowing softly, the EVs to be considered.
charged slower.
 11 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

HOW DOES SMART CHARGING WORK?

Scaling up the
charging network

Nowadays, smart charging technology is most commonly There is also a special limitation where chargers cannot be
applied through connecting charging stations under the too far apart from each other and the maximum number of
same brand via a data cable to form a local network. The stations in a group is limited. Additionally, a vendor lock-in with
communication is done via a proprietary protocol, developed one single charging stations manufacturer is created since the
by the specific charging stations manufacturers. There local communication is not based on an open and international
are, however, several downsides to this approach. It is standard and therefore will not work with stations of a different
not possible to consider dynamic energy prices or user manufacturer. This can become an issue should such a
requirements because the system cannot communicate charging stations manufacturer cease to exist or turn out to be
outside its local network. significantly more expensive than other brands over time.

This is why GreenFlux does all charging via OCPP –

the Open Charge Point Protocol – and a cloud-based system.

Smart charging is infinitely scalable: as long as enough server capacity is installed, a virtually unlimited
number of chargers can be connected to the cloud-based system. This works with any charging station
and all user inputs can be taken into account. Being part of an ecosystem, updates are continuously
being made to the algorithm and the interfaces with other systems.
 12 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

ELECTRIC NATION PROJECT

The largest smart

charging trial
As a pioneer in the field of smart The Electric Nation Project consisted of
a 3-year trial with 673 active participants
charging, GreenFlux supported
from 2016 to 2019. These participants
the Electric Nation Project in were scattered all over England, all
testing various smart charging connected via OCPP, and they engaged in
techniques. over 130,000 charging events. Through
GreenFlux’ smart charging system,
The Electric Nation Project, initiated by transaction data was gathered (e.g. the
Western Power Distribution2, researched number of plug ins and plug outs, active
if smart charging could avoid the need to charging sessions, amount of energy
enforce expensive network upgrades. The consumed, etc.). The GreenFlux system
data collected over three years helped to could monitor the overall power demand
understand the impact on the electricity of chargers and could reduce this
network of the charging of electric total demand by instructing individual
vehicles at home. chargers to reduce the power available to
charging EVs.

Hans de Boer, CEO of GreenFlux: “We

are very happy and proud
to have supplied our innovative smart charging
technology to the Electric Nation Project. The great
673 participants thing is that we can already apply the acquired

3-year trial knowledge about smart charging today. We are

working with different parties in the UK to put smart
130,000+ charging into practice, on sites such as large-scale
charging events apartment buildings and office buildings.” 3
 13 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

Electric Nation comprised three sub-trials to imitate In the third iteration, GreenFlux introduced price incentives
in the provided app. Participants could select a charging
various potential scenarios.
preference on how their charging should be scheduled with
respect to different time of use (ToU) tariffs:
For the first iteration, participants experienced smart charging
without being told when they were being managed. Many users
1) optimise time (charge regardless of price)
did not know if or when their vehicle was having its charging
2) minimise cost (charge during the off-peak period only)
session limited. Groups were managed when there was
3) optimise time and cost (charging could begin during the
insufficient capacity to give all active chargers their maximum
shoulder period, but would avoid the peak price charging)
allocation. Management was only needed during the evening
peak, so participants who charged outside this time would not
Users could earn shopping vouchers if they opted to charge
have experienced any management.
outside of peak hours. The trial results showed that the early
evening peak in EV charging demand disappeared. An extreme
Participants were given a mobile app to enable them to interact
increase in demand was observed at the cheap, overnight
with the smart charging system during the second iteration in
off-peak price boundary at 10PM. Though this peak was
the trial. Participants were able to view their charging session
still spread out by the GreenFlux smart charging algorithms
and request a high priority, which temporarily prioritized their
and therefore grid overload did not become an issue, such
charging session over the sessions of other EV drivers who
behaviour would be a serious issue for the balance in demand
did not request priority charging. Results showed that after an
and supply on a national level. If a few million EVs would all
initially high use of this function in the first two weeks (mostly
start charging at the exact same moment, the power production
out of curiosity), the requests for high priority quickly decayed
would not be able to maintain the balance in demand and
to being used in only 2-3% of charging events, indicating that EV
supply, leading to a national blackout.
drivers only use it when it is necessary for them.3

The third iteration showed that consumer behaviour can be

easily influenced with only a mild price-incentive. However, the
results proved that in order to moderate a consumer’s charging
behaviour, companies need to give appropriate incentives to
their users.
 14 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

Learnings
The takeaways from this project assist local electricity networks
in sustaining home EV charging while guaranteeing that drivers
can charge when they need to.

GreenFlux - Managed Weekday Group Demand -

Comparing Trial 3 (ToU) with Trial 1 (no ToU) control group
Power drawn (W per charger in group)

Time of day

Trial 3 (with ToU) (90th percentile) Trial 1 (no ToU) (90th percentile)

The communication between a Smart charging becomes easier if it’s For this reason, all this
charging station and electric vehicles known when an EV driver will arrive,
is very limited at the moment. There when he or she will leave, how much complexity was reduced
is a standardized protocol on how energy the EV needs and how much
electric vehicles should communicate energy there currently is in the vehicle.
to one input: the high
with charging stations and how these Nonetheless, this data is not available priority function, which
vehicles should respond to certain and where prediction of these variables
signals from the charging stations. may be done on an aggregated level, was greatly appreciated
The vast majority of electric vehicles they are unreliable on an individual level.
by the trial participants
comply with the protocol but a slight There are protocols in the making that
minority (<1%) shows some issues in would tell how much energy somebody and has nowadays
this regard. There are developments to needs but again, this is dependent on
make the communication richer, but it someone putting in this information
become a part of the
will take several years before most EVs somewhere, which is often not done and standard GreenFlux
will support this. Thanks to many years even if done, it is unreliable since an EV
of experience in this field, GreenFlux has driver could change his or her plans and offering.
created algorithms that deliver state- leave at a different time.
of-the-art performance even with only
limited available information.
 15 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

53 percent of users chose the option to delay charging in

exchange for cheaper energy.4 Therefore, during the simulated
evening peak, there was a steeper rise in energy demand at 10
p.m. as the demand management shifted charging to that time.

In the end, the Electric Nation Project raised the question of

whether customers were ready for ToU tariffs and smart charging.

The summarized trial data shows high

guarantee of user satisfaction during
the trial.

Participants knew their charging sessions were being managed

and when the incentive was introduced, the system gave users
the option to tell it how they wanted their charging session to
be managed.

GreenFlux could prove the hypothesis that price incentives are

strong motivators influencing consumer behaviour. However,
ToU tariffs proved not to be the appropriate method to compel
users. When consumers would get the same savings, they all
switched to the same charging moment, thus creating a new
and bigger peak. Although the smart charging algorithms could
still prevent grid overload on a local level, the peak created
by millions of simultaneously charging EVs would lead to an
unsolvable issue for power production on a national level.
This could even lead to national blackouts.

It is possible to optimise for both the grid and the power

balance simultaneously, but it requires a more elaborate set of
control signals. It is better to keep this complexity away from
end-users and to reward them for being flexible in a different
way. Examples of such a reward could be a fixed monthly
discount, a fixed discount per kWh or a free charging station.
 16 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

WHAT DOES GREENFLUX HAVE TO OFFER?

Demand
management via
a cloud-based
system
GreenFlux has developed a cloud-based service operations platform.
The correspondence between the cloud-based system and the
charging stations is conceivable through a reliable internet connection
and OCPP and therefore, GreenFlux ensures a secure and encrypted
communication with worldwide coverage.

Smart charging is only one of the many While there is an advantage in using
elements of the GreenFlux platform. capacity dynamically nowadays, there
Other essential functionalities to run a is an increased opportunity that comes
charging network successfully include along with the mass uptake of charging
asset management, the support of points and EVs in the future. Smart
business models, interoperability and charging will become crucial once
roaming and more. the mass uptake of EVs and electric
charging becomes more prevalent and
Smart charging remains the key the EV market and businesses scale-up,
differentiator by giving flexibility to a as smart charging keeps track of the
growing EV business. For charge point demand of the growing electric vehicles
operators, there are tangible benefits charging at the same time and makes
for using smart charging that consist sure the capacity line is never crossed.
of lowering the operational and capital
costs. No longer do they need to expand At the same time, smart charging
their connection to the grid and pay provides flexibility in the integration
additional monthly fees, but they can of renewable energy. Since renewable
rely on the smart charging functionality energy is less predictable, the EVs
of the GreenFlux platform to manage the provide a perfect outlet for the use
demand charge within boundaries. of surplus energy. While utilities can
adapt their business models to make
use of that, end-users can also benefit Ultimately, GreenFlux
from the energy prices. In the end,
the user charging experience is not
facilitates smart charging
impacted. Users do not notice their EV while providing custom-
charging sessions being managed by
the algorithm and they accept, interact made solutions to fit the
and rely on smart charging by having
the Charge Assist App with its priority
requirements of every
charging function. client’s business model.
 17 GreenFlux | EV Smart Charging Whitepaper

References
[1]
https://www.greenflux.com/greenflux-supplies-the-largest-smart-
charging-plaza-in-the-netherlands/

[2]
The customer-facing brand of CarConnect is Electric Nation, a Western
Power Distribution (WPD) and Network Innovation Alliance funded
project. WPD’s collaboration partners in the project are EA Technology,
DriveElectric, Lucy Electric GridKey and TRL.
For more information, see https://www.westernpower.co.uk/projects/
electric-nation

[3]
https://www.greenflux.com/the-results-of-the-largest-smart-charging-
project-in-the-world/

[4]
https://www.greenflux.com/wp-content/uploads/Electric-Nation-
Summary-Brochure.pdf
ABOUT GREENFLUX

The GreenFlux team supports companies to establish the right business model to operate
successfully in the EV industry. Apart from using smart charging, charge point operators and
e-mobility service providers can keep track of billing and payments remotely in real-time. Additionally,
companies can connect through GreenFlux’ partnerships with all major European roaming hubs to
enable connectivity to other EV charging networks thus eliminating the need for end-users to possess
multiple charging cards or apps. The Charge Assist App provides customers with an easy-to-use EV
charge app to find charge points, start and stop charging and easily pay after the charging session.
To learn more about the provided services of GreenFlux, check out www.greenflux.com.

Contact us for
more information

GreenFlux
Mauritskade 64
1092 AD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

E-mail: [email protected]