Smart CPOs grow EV charging networks and cut costs with Dynamic Load Management.

At a commercial hub, it is a peak hour for electricity consumption. Retail outlets are buzzing brightly, restaurants are preparing for the dinner rush, and at the EV charging station beside the hub, all 10 of 120 kW ultra-fast EV chargers become instantly occupied.  

Before the Charge Point Operator (CPO), who was monitoring situation remotely, could get notified about the usage warning, the facility’s load control systems become overloaded. As a result, the facility is left with intermittent power supply and increasing queues of waiting EV drivers.  

This is just one of the three problems that we call ‘Blow-Hog-Spike’.

At another location, a CPO, who is operating a much bigger EV charging network integrated with battery-boosted charging technology, is operating efficiently and peacefully. Drivers experience seamless charging, ultra-fast charging speeds, fair power supply for all vehicles, and fast-moving queues.

Battery-boosted charging is coming up as a reliable and high performing solution for charging stations. Its unique strength lies in using multiple sources of energy like grid, solar and wind. But that is just half the story. Battery-boosted charging uses a set of “intelligent systems” that enable smart energy usage and power sharing across chargers.

‍What is a smart energy management system? How does dynamic load management work? What is blow-hog-spike? How do these systems resolve blow-hog-spike without expensive power grid upgrades? Let’s find out in today’s blog.
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Rising EV sales in India

As per autocar professional the total number of EV sales in CY2024, rose to 2 million units., This means, that more and more Indian drivers are not only switching to EVs but are also preferring traction motor vehicles. Although EV adoption estimates are looking up, reliable and seamless high-power charging will be the ultimate guiding factor for at-scale EV adoption.

With India and the world rapidly adopting electric vehicles, meeting the demands of the EV users and keeping their impact on our electrical grids in check is challenging for CPO’s.

From an outsider’s view, the solution to India’s burgeoning EV market seems simple. Mathematically, more EV cars = more EV chargers or more available EV chargers. And the challenge is resolved. But from a CPO’s point of view, the mathematics of this is not that simple. For EV charging businesses, more expansive EV charging networks would mean more complexity.

Because when it comes to charging an EV, it’s a complex exchange between the power sources, power equipment and charging systems.

So, what are these complications?

The challenges of the CPO’s:

With increasing and widespread electrification of vehicles, it is naturally expected to push electricity use. Mckinsey notes that, though most power grids can produce energy overall for EV charging, only very select few can fulfil the demand of charging many vehicles at maximum charging speed.

When multiple 120 kW chargers are plugged in with each demanding high current draw instantly, you’re asking an evolving local power grid infrastructure, including the transformers and underground cables, to supply electricity at full speed.

With this situation comes mainly three challenges to the CPO’s.

1. Grid Overload (Blow):

Grid overload happens when the electrical network powering your charging site is asked to deliver more instantaneous power than its conductors, transformers, and protection devices were ever designed to handle. For clarity, imagine if a total of ten 120 kW DC fast chargers demanding full output in tandem, along with the adjacent building’s food court’s HVAC, and the evening streetlighting circuit.  

If this kind of power-demanding situation persists for a longer duration, the protective gear becomes activated. Breakers and fuses react in milliseconds to prevent overheating by disconnecting critical components of the system. Breakers trip to save hardware from heating damage or in a worst-case scenario, fuses may end up blowing if the breakers don't trip in time.  For a CPO, this is not a theoretical risk and should be accounted for. This causes unplanned outages and, in some cases, an expensive initiative to repair and restore services. This further translates into a loss in potential revenue and customer trust.

2. Unbalanced distribution/power allocation (Hog):

Let us assume that 5 EVs plugged into 5 different charging guns by a difference of milliseconds. The first one is a light heavy vehicle drawing 100 kW. The second gets 70 kW. And the others are just left with whatever power supply is remaining. In such setups, there is no intelligence for power distribution. Only raw distribution of power. Power flows to whoever gets in line first, regardless of their need and the current state of charge (SoC).

When several chargers share a limited-supply connection, one EV charger can consume more current than it truly needs. This leaves the remaining chargers with more or less inadequate power supply. The result is sluggish charging sessions, growing queues, and frustrated drivers.
This ‘first come first serve’ model is power hogging (hog). Your customer’s charging experience here will be determined by his/her timing. The result is a non-uniform power supply across the chargers. 

3. Power demand surges (Spike):

Normally every charger delivers power at max capacity from the moment the gun is plugged in. Without a dynamic load system, the EV chargers do not consider the current battery levels of the charging EVs. In peak hours, this naturally leads to a charging site’s power consumption shooting up, as all EV power supply equipment are at their maximum capacity.
Now how does this increase operational costs? CPO’s pay commercial electricity rates which are much higher than residential electricity rates. In some states it averages Rs 20/kWh. Depending on the load placed due to the grid, this sudden spike results in CPO’s paying utility bills at the highest demand rate.  
Meanwhile, on the circuit level, transformers and cables become hotter. Any issue slows the entire charging queue. The result is wasted energy, higher operating costs, and drivers who end up waiting longer than they should. This is what we like to call ‘Spike’.

These issues combined are known as ‘Blow-hog-spike' for the CPO’s.

The traditional resolution for this is to arrange for transformer upgrades.  

However, the smart way to overcome this without upgrading the grid, is to install a battery boosted ev charging system that with Energy Management System (EMS) that can supply battery-stored solar and electric power, along with a Dynamic Load Manager (DLM) that runs real-time algorithms and multiple permutations and combinations to assign fair power supply to charging vehicles as per their charging needs.

So, what are these solutions and how are they helping CPO’s?

The illustration above shows the data and electricity flow in a Battery boosted EV charging station  

Energy management system and dynamic load management helping CPOs:

EMS is a technology platform that helps in optimizing energy-related processes such as energy flow, and assets. Basically, it creates a logic for energy flow, monitors system health, and it also interacts with adjacent decision systems like the Battery management system (BMS), Power conversion systems (PCS), along with external energy sources like the Grid to optimize energy flow.
 

It is of two types:
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1. Rule-based EMS: Here fixed rules make energy allocation decisions. Static in nature.

2. Predictive-EMS: Here EMS leverages forecasting strategies for flexible and intelligent decisions.  
This helps in maximizing the use of renewable energy, and in monitoring and control of the system, and ensures systems safety.

Coming to the topic of load manager, it balances the power supply with multiple charging demands by monitoring and controlling the charging station or network at charger level. Load manager can be either static or dynamic by design.

1. A static load manager has a fixed charging speed for every charger attached to its network. This approach is good for limited usage but offers limited scalability and can lead to system overloads.
    

2. A Dynamic Load Manager (DLM) uses maximum load setpoint at either a charger level or a site level. This helps in allocating different charging speeds as per the EV requirement. DLM offers better scalability for the CPOs (Adding more chargers at a later stage) and increases charger efficiency.

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While the EMS optimizes the use of input energy by analyzing usage patterns and identifying areas of improvement to implement optimization strategies. The DLM helps with peak shaving by adjusting the power to EVs plugged in. This is a great way to reduce energy consumption and related costs while maintaining stable EV charging.¹

In businesses, scaling is an important factor. Whether you have to manage 2, or more than 20 EV charging points, the principle of power distribution will remain exactly the same. The dynamic load manager can be programmed in three ways to manage EV charging loads. These approaches are:

1. Load Levelling:

The load levelling approach uses the concept of maximum load setpoint, which is a predefined limit for total power usage. It compares the maximum load setpoint to the total power demand per EV. If the combined power demand exceeds the load setpoint, then it will distribute the power evenly (depending on the programming).

2. Adaptive load management:

This approach also uses maximum load setpoint but at a charger level, controlling how much power each charger can use. It also keeps track of active charging sessions to see how much power is already being drawn by other EVs and adjusts accordingly.

3. Site responsive load management:

This approach to dynamic load management monitors total power usage at a charging site and automatically adjusts EV charging to stay within the available electrical capacity. It ensures the chargers don’t draw more power than what is safely available.

Below table is a summary on how it helps:

[Please note: DLM needs sensors and software installation upfront, and it is much cheaper and faster than setting up a new transformer.]  

FINAL THOUGHT:

As electric vehicle adoption surges across India, the spotlight is no longer just on the vehicles themselves. But also, on the backbone our charging infrastructure. As it is an evolving infrastructure, CPO’s face the challenge of blow-hog-spike. The energy management system and dynamic load management of a battery backed energy solution is the best method to overcome these, without expensive power grid upgrades. The smart and strategic approach is what actually EV charging sites need. And it gets even better when you pair it with a battery storage solution.

Exicom’s Harmony Boost solution delivers just that. Harmony Boost equips EV charging sites with dynamic load management and an energy management system. This creates a resilient ecosystem in which energy flows intelligently. It reallocates power among chargers, stores energy during low-demand hours, and releases it precisely when needed, dodging peak tariffs and grid constraints with ease. The system can not only reshuffle power between chargers but can also draw from or store extra kilowatts when the grid operations are restricted. Think of it not as just hardware, but as a silent partner that learns, adjusts, and protects your bottom line. So, before you consider another costly grid upgrade, consider Harmony Boost. A solution that lets your infrastructure grow with confidence, not with compromise.

Let’s charge forward, smarter.Contact us today, to avoid peak hour tariffs, and keep your charging stations operating and increasing without spending a single precious rupee on capacity upgrades.
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‍Glossary (Energy Management)

• Battery-Boosted EV Charging: A system that uses multiple electrical components and stored energy to provide ultra-fast charging for electric vehicles.  

• Charge Point Operator (CPO): An entity that operates and manages EV charging stations.  

• Battery Management System (BMS): A system that manages the batteries in the storage unit, monitoring their health and charge.  

• Power Control System (PCS): A system that regulates the flow of electricity from different energy sources to avoid overloads and can switch between sources.  

• Dynamic Load Manager (DLM): A system responsible for distributing the available power evenly among the EVs connected to the charging system.  

• Energy Management System (EMS): A technology platform that optimizes energy-related processes and assets in the charging system. It acts as a link between the grid, BMS, and chargers.  

• Optimization Algorithm: The core of the EMS that makes key decisions on energy consumption, storage, and utilization.

• Gateway (IoT gateway): A central component in the EMS that standardizes communication between different subsystems.  

• User Interface: A platform that allows users (like CPOs) to view data and understand the system's operation.  

Power Conversion System (PCS): A PCS manages the conversion of electrical power from one form to another, often to integrate different energy sources (like solar panels or batteries) into the grid or a building's energy system.