EVSE charges fleet future

SPEAKING at the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) Australasian Fleet Conference in Brisbane this week, EVSE co-founder and chief executive, Brendan Wheeler, said simplifying the charging infrastructure for fleet operators wanting making the shift to electric vehicles is an important and overlooked step in the process.

Mr Wheeler explained that the mission at EVSE is to de-carbonise the way we move, by accelerating the uptake of electric vehicles, with a strong fleet and commercial focus.

Since 2015, the charging solutions provider has partnered with clients to provide them with a scalable and future-proof end-to-end EV charging solution, incorporating engineering, design, hardware, installation, software and ongoing support.

In his presentation, Mr Wheeler outlined a three-part process for establishing charging infrastructure when electrifying your vehicle fleet, encompassing planning, implementation and optimisation.

“Step one is ‘plan’, and this actually happens to be the longest part,” he said.

He explained that in the case of EVSE, the company has encountered customers who want more than they actually need or haven’t carefully considered their charging requirements.

"So, in planning for success … when we look at EV charging, a lot of people come to us and say, ‘we need a charging station’ and I guess the discussion sort of has to go back to the start.

“‘Starting with the end in mind’ is a question we often ask the fleet manager or the customer, just to understand what their current fleet looks like and where they want to go in the future.

“Often people come to us wanting the fastest charger that they've heard of and then when we start unpacking that a little bit and understanding how the vehicles are being used, how long are they parked for, what's the average daily commute they're taking, we actually find that an AC charger, which is, you know, maybe around the $2000 mark is more than enough for them.

“But they’d initially come to us wanting, you know, a $100,000-plus type of kit.”

It is important to have your fleet assessed by an expert, Mr Wheeler said, to ensure your fleet and implementation plan are matched with the right charging infrastructure.

“Mapping that journey out will sort of help us to understand the use case of these vehicles and then match the charging infrastructure in an appropriate way,” he said.

“For us, it’s (about) backtracking there and just asking those questions around use case and dwell time. As a rough rule of thumb, the longer the dwell time, the slower the charge can be.

“Obviously, that charging infrastructure should match the operational needs.”

Another factor to be considered, and in some cases tested, is the electrical capacity of your site and its existing infrastructure.

“This is going to be a limiting factor as to what type of infrastructure you can install,” said Mr Wheeler.

“Obviously, your buildings have a set amount of electricity. So, we have to work within that to ensure we're not having to go out to apply for grid upgrades and various things, which can make deploying infrastructure particularly expensive or even prohibitive.”

Mr Wheeler suggested having your electrical infrastructure looked at during planning, which EVSE does early on in the planning stage.

“What we generally do with our partners is a walk around of sites to identify which ones are most suited to EV things like position of distribution boards, you know whether we can mount charges on a wall as opposed to on the ground and have to do associated civil work,” he said,

The implementation phase at EVSE involves pre-installation measures, installation, handover, and training. Of course, this stage can vary based on procurement times for certain products that are in hot demand.

“On the pre-installation side of things, I think it's important to understand the timeframe, and the procurement timeframe for the hardware,” he added.

“Some DC charges are sort of out to nine-to-12 months. So, if you've got a car coming in, in two months, it's probably not going to work very well.”

After system installation is complete, EVSE goes the extra mile to show the client how it all works, and trains them up.

“We like to do a post-installation walkthrough with the client, visually inspect things, make sure everything is as they expected, handover and site sign off. And that sort of handover pack with all the various instructional guides designs training on onboarding is very important as well,” he explained.

The final piece of the charging infrastructure puzzle, and this was explained as more of an ongoing process by Mr Wheeler, is the the optimisation stage.

“I guess the way we look at optimisation is by utilising software,” he detailed.

“Software sits behind the hardware itself, and it gives a fleet operator or an asset owner all the data about how those assets are being used. That can include such things as charger uptime, dwell time, how long they're charging for, how much electricity is being used, how long they're plugged in, and not charging.

“And I guess what this does is allow you to make more data-driven decisions around the infrastructure.”

The intelligent software component of charging systems even allows fleets to allow at-home charging while tracking energy use.

“There's a large number of vehicles that go home, so the way you work around that is by installing a smart charger in a home and link that data back into your aggregator platform. And that way you can reimburse people's personal electricity use for work vehicles,” he said.

The final optimisation step to consider is proactive servicing, building charger upkeep into your existing maintenance schedules.

“It's often a sort of afterthought, but I think it's probably one of the most important things. Australian Standards wants us to do it once a year and I think it's something you know, like with your vehicles, you service them on a regular basis,” he explained.

“This will optimise the uptime of your investment and that charging infrastructure.”

EVSE supplies the latest chargers for commercial, fleet and household charging, with a strong focus on uptime.

“As fleet managers, for the most part, you guys are acutely aware that these vehicles need to be moving and need to be in use. So, the uptime of the charger is critically important,” concluded Mr Wheeler.