Driving the future: How dynamic load balancing harmonises grids and supercharges EV expansion

By: Vianney Devienne, Managing Director France.

Serving up efficiency
Imagine being in a bustling restaurant where the number of customers and orders vary throughout the day. Each waiter is assigned a section of the restaurant, but as the evening progresses, some sections become busier than others. Perhaps a large party of work colleagues arrive in one part of the restaurant, significantly increasing the workload there, while another section becomes quieter as diners finish their meals and leave. The restaurant manager observes the changes and reassigns some of the waiters in charge of the quieter sections to the busier ones, ensuring that all customers receive prompt and efficient service. The reallocation of staff is done dynamically and continues to adjust according to the flow of customers.

That’s how dynamic load balancing works.

Just like the restaurant manager observing demand and allocating staff to where they are most needed, a dynamic load manager will make sure to adjust the flow of electricity among chargers to handle the varying amounts of workload efficiently.

Plugged in and powered up
With this technology, power grids, already strained at peak hours, can breathe a sigh of relief. By strategically distributing the load from EVs across the local network, dynamic load balancing prevents surges that could destabilise the grid while at the same time enabling simultaneous EV charging across multiple stations. If integrated with energy systems, dynamic load balancing can also be tasked to prioritise renewables.

And while publicly available fast chargers address range anxiety, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that public slow chargers will be the key enabler for further EV adoption, especially in dense urban areas where home charging is limited (1). The agency argues that it’s critical to focus on peak load management, electricity infrastructure and smart charging in order to reduce the dependence on fast charging (2).

Unlike other manufacturers that require expensive hardware installations, Zaptec’s system operates without the need for a local energy manager. This reduces both the initial investment and the installation time.

We have also further improved on the dynamic load balancing system with our patented ‘dynamic phase balancing’. As the only provider to offer phase balancing for EVs, our system ensures electricity is evenly and automatically distributed to all three phases in a power circuit, providing a safer and more efficient charge. In a parking lot with 9 available spaces, the norm would be to have three spaces linked to one phase each. Going back to the previous restaurant analogy, three cars parked in the spots linked up to the same phase would be the same as two waiters sitting idle on their smartphones, watching the third waiter work at maximum capacity. With Zaptec’s dynamic phase balancing, it doesn’t matter where the cars are parked – the system will let the cars charge on all three phases simultaneously, evenly distributing the load.

We can manage up to 4 million chargers in a single installation, an absurdly large number that demonstrates the incredible flexibility of our system. In contrast, other systems are limited to fewer chargers and require upgrades as the number of chargers increases.

EVolution
With a future brimming with electric vehicles that will be plugged in after work, dynamic load management is a necessity to facilitate infrastructure scalability and reduce some of the need for expensive grid upgrades. It is, after all, important to ensure power outages don’t become the new rush hour.

Our system continues to perform temporary load management even if the cloud connection is lost. Zaptec Sense monitors real-time availability and adjusts dynamically, ensuring efficient resource use, similar to a traffic controller efficiently managing multiple lanes of traffic.

Zaptec’s system can manage multiple circuits, unlike many competitors limited to single-circuit management. This is like having multiple waiters serving different restaurants in the same food court.

Our advanced load management comes natively with each Zaptec Pro charger at no extra cost

Sources:

1. https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2023/trends-in-charging-infrastructure
2. https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2023/prospects-for-electric-vehicle-deployment
3. https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2023/trends-in-charging-infrastructure
4. https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2023/prospects-for-electric-vehicle-deployment