The electrification of transports is one of the most important approaches to achieve the necessary decarbonization of the economy. However, this massive electrification represents new challenges for the power system, not only at the grid level, but also at behind the meter electrical infrastructures.
Smart Charging: new challenges
These new challenges could be mitigated by using smart charging procedures, like shifting charging cycles in time or modulating the power in function of constraints (e.g., connection capacity, user needs or real-time local energy production). Smart charging therefore is a way of optimizing the charging process according to distribution grid constraints and local renewable energy availability, as well as the preferences of drivers and chargers site hosts.
At EDP we are exploring Smart Charging at different levels. One example is the application of the technology at our Headquarters, where we have more than a dozen of charging stations connected to a cloud-based backend, that is receiving real time information about the consumption of the entire building and real-time information about the Solar generation installed at the rooftop of the building.
Using all this information we will be able to set a minute-by-minute charging profile and sent it back to each charging stations, guaranteeing that we avoid unnecessary peaks loads and optimizing the consumption of solar energy.
