If you operate an EV charging station with one charging point, you might not have an interest in load management. But as soon as you consider adding several other charging spots to the same station, the phrase pops up almost wherever you go.
With EVs becoming more common now (more than 4 million on American roads, and counting), having multiple charging points makes sense. Any commercial space, like offices, multi-unit houses, or shopping centers, can benefit more when they install several chargers. But first, understanding load management EV charging is more important before making any moves.
What is Load Management? How Does it Apply in EV Charging?
It’s a cold Monday morning, you’re late for work, and you’ve got a coffee kettle, toaster, and hairdryer plugged in all at once. In the other room, your partner is ironing their work attire for the day. Then BAM! Everything goes off, and the entire flat goes silent.
Now imagine such a scenario happening citywide, and the cause isn’t just the regular home appliances, but hundreds of electric vehicles charging at various stations. That’s where the idea of load management device chips in.
In simple terms, load management is balancing the consumption of electricity in real time to maintain it within the maximum capacity that the circuit and electrical panel can support. When we apply this to EV charging, it’s controlling the electricity demand of a charging station to maintain electrical service efficiency, reliability, and safety.
EV charging load management lets you determine the amount of electric energy each charging point can use, especially when there are several electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) connected to a single panel. When this is properly configured, each charger automatically balances how much energy it can deliver in one go.
Since an EV charging system consumes more electric energy than a home appliance, like a toaster, it can get more challenging when you have multiple EVSEs connected. That’s why it’s crucial to have a load management system in place.
Is Load Management the Same as Load Balancing
While these two terms sound similar and are often used interchangeably, they have slightly different meanings.
Load Balancing
Load balancing is important for determining the exact measure of power to be allocated to an EV charger, whether statically or dynamically. This is done for safe connection of maximum load, especially at the grid connection point (GCP). If you’re familiar with fuse protection installed in homes, it’s the same thing.
Think of load balancing like a referee in a fast-paced match, doing the role of managing real-time distribution. It kicks in when the power available is limited and multiple EVs are plugged in at the same time. Its job is to keep everything fair on the fly.
Imagine a situation where three electric cars are plugged into a single 22kW charger hub. Load balancing will distribute the power, maybe 7.3kW each, or 11kW for one and 5.5kW for the other two, depending on what’s available and who needs it first.
Load Management
We’ve discussed load management, but let’s clarify it further. Load management infuses the safety considerations in load balancing with smart charging features such as priority charging, multi-fuse setups, and grid optimization.
Load management EV charging looks at the entire energy situation: what’s coming in, what’s going out, who needs a charge, and when rates are cheaper or more expensive. Load management is concerned with the cost, timing, grid pressure, and even forecasting future demands.
Types of Load Management
Load management has different types, each serving different purposes depending on your EV charging network setup.
Static Load Management
This is where the available charge or grid energy is distributed equally across every charger according to the pre-configured settings. The entire charging infrastructure receives a fixed energy share, which is equally subdivided among the EV chargers.
Static load management is the simplest, hence ideal for small setups, like your office’s two charging bays in the basement. Although simple, it’s inflexible and only suits use cases that have predictable consumption patterns.
Dynamic Load Management (DLM)
Like you might have guessed, dynamic load management adjusts power delivery according to what’s happening in real-time. It monitors the energy consumption of your entire site in real time, including every uncontrollable load on the same connection to the grid. It then adjusts the distribution across the charging stations depending on their real-time demand.
Dynamic load management allocates power dynamically to the chargers depending on the GCP measurements. This can allow you to effectively use the grid capacity and benefit the most from the available power. DLM best suits more complex and larger EV charging networks with different uncontrollable and charging loads. It offers enhanced energy efficiency and prevents grid overloads.
10 Smart Load Management Strategies To Enhance Grid Efficiency
As more electric cars plug into the grid, especially during peak hours, something’s gonna give. But with the right load management EV charging strategies in place, we can keep the lights on, the chargers humming, and the grid from experiencing an overload.
Let’s dive into the smart stuff that people are doing and you should be doing if you haven’t started, to keep power demand from going completely wild.
Scheduled Charging. Timing is Everything
It’s pretty straightforward that the minute you plug in your phone, it starts charging right away. The same concept applies, except with smart load management, it’s a notch higher. If by the time you plug in your EV and the grid is a bit loaded, a smart charger waits for those off-peak hours. This is usually past 10 pm when kids are asleep and your neighbor isn’t vacuuming at odd hours.
During off-peak hours, rates are cheaper, the grid isn’t overloaded, and your battery will still be full by morning. That’s the power of scheduled charging in load management EV charging.
Dynamic Load Management (DLM)
Another key load management strategy that’s smart is dynamic load management EV charging. Think of a situation where you’re driving on a busy roundabout that has no signs. It sounds chaotic, doesn’t it? Compare that to a super chill traffic warden directing vehicles without anyone’s notice. That’s how DLM works.
DLM monitors the power consumption in real time, then adjusts EV charging right away. Say for instance someone in the office switches on the AC or someone in your apartment building fires up all five fryers. The DLM here eases back on charging until the load on the grid lowers. It’s all about spreading the power smartly without overloading the circuits.
Energy Storage Integration: Your Battery’s Backup Battery
At some point in life, some of us have stashed coins for rainy days or emergencies. Well, energy storage systems like our HELIX battery energy storage system provide a scalable, future-ready hybrid charging system with 250kWh storage, rapid discharge, and up to 320kW output—ideal for off-grid EV fleet operations. If you have solar panels at home or workplace, the energy harnessed gets stored when it’s sunny.
Later on, when power demand spikes, instead of relying on the grid, your system simply uses its energy reserve. This strategy reduces stress on the grid and saves you money.
Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G): Your Electric Car’s Side Hustle
Your electric car’s battery is so powerful that it can moonlight as a mini power station, besides doing its day job of powering your EV. When there’s surplus energy, V2G technology allows your car to feed energy back into the grid. So, if the grid is a bit squeezed and your EV is topped up, you can share a little bit of that energy with your neighborhood.
Countries like Japan have already taken huge milestones with the V2G idea, and with the fast EV adoption rate, it won’t be long before the world does the same.
Smart Charging Infrastructure
All EV chargers are not the same; some are glorified extension cables while others are just too clever. The latter are the smart chargers, capable of communicating with the grid and adjusting charging speeds according to energy availability. They can even respond to your charging network app settings.
If you want, they can only charge when electricity is cheapest and can pause when the grid is having an overload.
Demand Response Programs
It might sound daft, but this load management EV charging strategy lets you earn money by simply doing… nothing? Some utility providers can pay you not to charge your electric car during peak hours. They have a fancy term for it: demand response.
If you can allow the utility to slow down or even pause your EV charging during the busy hours, they can shave a few dollars off your electric bill. You’re simply getting a reward for being chill. And in a world where everyone’s chasing the coin, it feels like a dream come true when you get paid for doing nothing.
Power Sharing in Multi-Unit Dwellings
If you stay in a condo or flat, charging your electric car can be chaotic and more likely to cause arguments. However, with a smart load management setup, power can be rotated between cars in shared garages. The decisions can be made based on who has the lowest battery reading or it could be a time-slot issue. Whichever it is, it’s better than the “first come, first plugged” type of chaos. Sharing is caring, even if your next-door neighbor still parks in a weird way.
Final Thoughts
If you thought load management EV charging is just a tech babble that engineers toss around, it’s not. It is the single most important idea safeguarding the future of electric cars. Without it, it would be almost impossible for the grid to serve every user efficiently and fairly.
Remember, these EV charging load management strategies are not for some big corporation or government entity to implement. Whether you own a fleet, are a city planner, or someone with a KIA EV6 and a dream, you’re part of the load management dance.