How utilities can flexibly manage EV charging

(Photo by Ernest Ojeh on Unsplash.)

When a new electric vehicle (EV) buyer connects their vehicle to the grid, the impact on the transformer is like adding a whole new house’s worth of energy demand. Instead of preventing customers from charging during a specific time, technology companies like Landis+Gyr envision a more collaborative relationship, where utilities and customers work together to find the best times to charge and avoid charging.

John Romero, VP of Electric Vehicle Solutions at Landis+Gyr, chatted with John Engel, DISTRIBUTECH and POWERGRID editor-in-chief in the EV Zone at DISTRIBUTECH International 2024 to discuss managing demand, the challenges utilities face with EV adoption, and how these issues can be addressed.

Customers want their EVs charged when they want them charged, Romero said, and outright preventing them from charging during peak windows will likely make them unhappy. But when utilities are seeing double-digit percentages of EV adoption rates in specific neighborhoods, not just their entire service area, the infrastructure is threatened.

“We provide tools that help the utility and the customer work together to find the most flexible time to charge and not charge, so that we minimize the impact on infrastructure on the grid,” Romero said. “The utility industry is continuing to evolve. So we do the same thing.”

Originally published in POWERGRID International.