Comparison of electric vehicle fleet smart charging methods

Charging Electric Vehicle Fleets requires expensive charging infrastructure and electricity grid upgrades; however, the costs can be mitigated by smart charging – planning the charging power over time. EV fleets present unique smart charging challenges and opportunities compared to private cars. Smart Charging varies in complexity from instructions on where to park returning vehicles, to integrated software systems monitoring the vehicles and utility prices and directing the parking and charging process real time. This paper presents a range of inputs and outputs which can be used for smart charging, presents a categorization of the levels of smart charging systems, and evaluates the potential cost savings for each level in an example case using ChargeSim fleet charging analysis and simulation software. In the example case, unmanaged charging could cost 70% more than theoretical minimum achievable with an energy storage system, however even a simple smart charging system could reduce the excess cost to only 13%.