As the Government pushes the adoption of Electric vehicles more and more electricity will be required to charge them. Electricity is not made and consumed equally throughout the day. Thanks to solar, a lot more energy is created during sunny times than later on during the day. At the same time, factories and offices consume a lot more power during the day than at night. This is called peak and off-peak. As the name suggests, off-peak times are when lesser energy is being consumed than what is being generated.
Smart electricity meters and smart EV chargers can bridge the gap between supply and demand. Not only can the EV charging be done at off-peak times, but it will also be cheaper to do so without adding more electricity generation requirements. Without smart charging Electric Vehicles especially ones used for public transportation would add a significant burden to the grid that could also cause blackouts. Currently, most utility companies in India are under losses and do not have the financial resources to modernize their systems.
The electric vehicle charger manufacturers in India need to modernize their transmission and increase production capacity to be able to charge all the additional EVs. The data from the smart chargers will help our utilities plan their efforts better. It would help with capacity planning for the future. The shift to electric vehicles will be almost impossible without the help of smart chargers.
Next-generation of vehicles will support bi-directional charging or Vehicle to Grid (V2G). This means that the vehicles can also help power the grid or your house when required. This is the next generation of smart chargers that will start to be implemented in the coming months. This would help stabilize the grid even more and help prevent blackouts. And in the event of a blackout, the EV can power your home for a few hours. This would be one of the most efficient ways of making sure that electricity is not wasted and much less money would be required in creating more power generation. This would also encourage more renewable energy also as the cars would be charged when there is enough sunlight and could help power the grid during peak evening hours when the renewable are not able to generate enough power.
This would also help customers of EVs especially fleet owners recover the costs of their EVs in a much faster way.
With additional revenue generated from EVs to additional power received from EVs, smart chargers can transform how utility companies operate and can make this transition into an opportunity instead of a challenge. Manufacturers of EV chargers that use smart meters will also play an important role in this transformation, providing vital data to utilities to help understand these dynamically changing requirements and to plan for the future.