By Kor Meelker, senior director, global standards, ChargePoint

Kor Meelker, senior director, global standards, ChargePoint

The hours of daylight are increasing as we move through the spring months and that means more electricity is created from solar cells. The warmer seasons also mean reduced daytime energy demand, lower evening peaks and higher energy exports to the grid. Combined, these mean less pressure on the electricity network for the next six months or so.

Conversely, as we transition to a more electrified driving landscape, each new EV or PHEV sold increases energy demand. A large amount of work is underway across the automotive and energy industries to balance this equation. The solution is often referred to as ‘smart charging’, but what does that actually mean? That’s what I want to explain.

The worldwide transition from ICE vehicles to EVs is not only transforming transportation, but fundamentally reshaping the global energy system. In the long term, smart charging will optimise charging processes based on time, grid conditions and price. For example, periods of high solar generation combined with low grid utilisation – for example, the summer that’s coming – can be prioritised. By synchronising these with electricity prices and grid conditions, energy consumption becomes more efficient. This makes smart charging a key lever for adjusting energy consumption to local and grid-level conditions, thereby improving the system’s reliability, efficiency and overall stability.

Smart charging also creates new revenue opportunities for charge point operators (CPOs), fleet operators, utilities and grid operators by supporting demand management. Although grid expansion remains necessary in many urban areas, smart charging means optimising the charge points which already exist and these need to include a number of key technologies to be at their most efficient. Let me highlight those:

• CPOs and fleet operators require demand response programmes to adapt charging processes to grid and price conditions, benefiting from lower energy costs. The economic benefits can be quantified for both private users and fleet operators. Over a 10‑year period, savings of €2,000 to €4,000 (c.£1,730 to £3,460) per vehicle are achievable through load shifting and more efficient use of renewable energy.
• AI-supported platforms make it possible to optimise charging operations, reduce costs and improve infrastructure reliability.
• With the expansion of charging infrastructure, local congestion management becomes critical. Smart charging helps prevent overloads on connections and transformers. By intelligently shifting or limiting charging, existing grid capacity can be used more efficiently and costly grid upgrades can be reduced.
• Real-time load management prevents connection overloads and stabilises operations.
• Tariff optimisation adjusts charging sessions to dynamic pricing, while the integration of solar panels and on-site energy storage improves efficiency and self-consumption.
• Manufacturer-agnostic standards ensure interoperability across different systems.
• For everything to work as it should, the network must utilise predictive hardware maintenance based on telemetry and status data, as well as scalable, cloud‑based architectures that enable efficient growth when required.
• Fleet operations benefit from features enabled via software: predictive scheduling and real-time monitoring via centralised dashboards, leveraging vehicle telematics to maximise operational uptime.

Smart charging is an indispensable foundation for a modern, stable and sustainable energy system and a key technology for tomorrow’s mobility. Partnerships, such as the one announced between ChargePoint and Eaton last year, play a crucial role in technical implementation and in creating seamless charging ecosystems. Everything listed above is either already part of the ChargePoint portfolio of hardware, software and services, or will become so.

For charging infrastructure installers, the arrival of smart charging means that communication and data pathways must be planned just as carefully as the physical placement of charging points. Connectivity, updatability and security are now core requirements for any modern charging station. At the same time, standardised measurement and control concepts are becoming increasingly important. The challenge is to coordinate different hardware components, backends and protocols so that everything works in harmony.