4 Ways That Your Business Benefits From EV Power Management Software
Whether it be EV manufacturers, charging station managers or drivers, everyone connected to the EV industry hopes to save money. One consideration for businesses and owners of other buildings offering EV charging is how to deliver the necessary power to charge EVs through electrical capacities that are often developed without EV charging in mind. While increasing electrical capacity at a site is sometimes an option, it is often very expensive and unnecessary. Instead, businesses should consider implementing power management software, sometimes also referred to as load management, with their existing power capabilities.
Why Is Power Management Necessary? 4 Key Benefits for Businesses
There are a few reasons why implementing power management software for your business is crucial.
1.) Increased Charging Capacity
Expanding electrical capacity is expensive, time-consuming and requires municipal or utility approvals. But businesses don’t want to limit their charging stations to whatever capacity exists at the site. Power management thus allows charging stations to operate with many more chargers (depending on their expected usage) without exceeding their site electrical limits.
2.) Better Monitoring of Your Electrical Infrastructure
Power management is incredibly helpful in monitoring the health and efficiency of your electrical infrastructure. That means decreased power incidents and increased uptime. As systems develop and smart charging, power management software and demand response continue to interconnect, your place of business will save even more money and your energy grid usage will continue to become more efficient.
3.) Decreased Upfront Costs for Property Owners
As we mentioned before, electric vehicles can consume a lot of energy. That’s bad enough if you’re plugging one into your house, but property owners have other considerations to make. Your local grid isn’t the only thing with an electricity limit: Your property has one, too. Without a power management system, offering multiple charging stations on your property will likely require expensive upgrades to your electrical infrastructure. Likewise, you’re probably going to be hit with huge demand charges.
That all changes with a power management system. Because these systems are built to manage and distribute electricity according to your setting, you can set your chargers to remain within the limits of what you already have. For property owners and developers considering adding charging infrastructure, this is an enormous boon that slashes the initial costs required when offering charging services.
4.) Operational Efficiency for EV Fleets
Another fantastic benefit of power management software is increasing the operational efficiency of your EV fleet. While many businesses can offer charging to EV fleets, power management can be especially beneficial if a business has its fleet to power up. Analyzing the site-specific demands of your fleet can help you adapt driving schedules to increase utilization and optimize charging costs. While an EV fleet may cost slightly more upfront than gas-powered, the opportunity to save on operational costs for the lifetime of the fleet is significant through power management software.
Wrapping Up
While there are basic power management software platforms for any building site, it makes the most sense to communicate with the experts at EV Connect to discuss your power management needs. Working in tandem with smart charging carried out at the charger level and demand response from the power company, power management has the potential to significantly reduce your site costs. Not to mention this helps ensure a sustainable future for EVs if sites can continue to maximize the potential of their existing power infrastructure!
Sources
Schneider Electric - What Is a Power Management System, and How Does It Help Optimize Uptime and Efficiency?
EnergyStar.Gov - Activating Power Management: Commercial Software Packages
Environmental Leader - Electric Vehicle Charging Generating Growth in Building Energy Management Systems
McKinsey - Charging electric-vehicle fleets: How to seize the emerging opportunity