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As electric vehicles become more widespread, players in multiple industries are taking the chance to capitalise on the growing market and investing in electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. EV chargers require a lot of power, and when installed on-site, they can put a strain on the property’s electrical infrastructure – if not managed properly.
Thankfully, various smart energy management tools help you optimise the existing power supply, so you don’t have to worry about power overloads and blowing fuses.
What is Dynamic Load Management?
Dynamic Load Management, or DLM, is one of many smart energy management tools. DLM ensures that the available power is evenly distributed to all the EVs being charged simultaneously and that charging happens at a full volume whenever there’s enough capacity.
Installing a couple of charging points doesn’t typically have a significant impact on the electricity infrastructure of a building. However, larger installations often require a little bit of smart charging magic. Sites with a pool of chargers connected to a single energy supply are where DLM truly shines.
| Refresher: What is smart charging? |
| Smart charging refers to a system where an EV shares a data connection with the EV charger and the EV charger with the charging point operator (CPO). It allows the CPO to monitor, manage, and restrict the use of their charging devices remotely to optimise energy consumption. |
Consider providing charging for 20 EVs in the garage of a residential or a commercial building with 22 kW plugs (3 x 32 A, charging speed 100 km/h). This would require a 3 x 640 A electricity connection — costing you tens of thousands of euros.
With Dynamic Load Management, that extra investment becomes unnecessary. You’ll manage effectively with the electricity connection your site already has available.
The benefits of Dynamic Load Management
Save electricity costs
DLM takes the available electricity and constantly optimises charging to keep your EVs charged whenever needed. You set a maximum charging power limit and ensure your electricity contract’s limit is never exceeded. This way, you save on additional electricity costs.
No extra hardware investments
There is no physical wiring between the charging devices. As the Dynamic Load Management tool lives up on the cloud, there’s no need for extra infrastructure or installation costs. This significantly reduces your upfront investments and rids you of future expensive electrical upgrades as your charging infrastructure grows.
Protect the grid
Setting the maximum charging power limit eliminates the risk of overloading even when multiple chargers are used simultaneously, thus protecting the electrical grid.
Install more chargers
The electricity connection of your site only allows you to install a certain number of EV chargers. With Dynamic Load Management, it doesn’t matter how many EV chargers are added; you will never exceed your power limit, even without updates to your electricity connection.
How does it work in practice?
Let’s take the Virta Dynamic Load Management solution as an example:
- First, you create groups of your charging stations on the Virta Platform.
- Then, you set a maximum charging power limit for a selected group of charging stations.
- Now, the smart system monitors the power supply on-site and automatically balances the charging power of each of your charging stations based on the charging power limit you set for the group.
- The available power is divided between all the charging points with a connected EV, which is constantly optimised.
Optimise your electrical system with Virta
Virta’s Dynamic Load Management solution enables you to manage EV chargers by multiple manufacturers and brands, AC and DC alike, all in one system – the Virta Platform. Devices must be connected to the Virta Platform through a GPRS connection using the Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP).
Energy management is an essential part of running EV charging operations. At Virta, we constantly develop new solutions to ensure efficiency for our customers.
Psst! If you’re interested in learning more about our smart energy management solutions, dive into our comprehensive overview 👇
