The development of electric mobility

Electromobility will increase more and more in the coming years and shape the traffic image of the future. The strongest driver behind electromobility is environmental problems such as global warming, the consequences of which are also becoming increasingly apparent in our country. For this reason, most industrialized countries on our planet are demanding ever stricter CO2 regulations and are writing them down in their laws. The now more stringent CO2 values must also be observed by the car industry, otherwise massive penalty taxes will be imposed. Many renowned vehicle manufacturers, such as Porsche, Volvo or Volkswagen, have already announced that the future will be purely electric and that it is therefore only a matter of time before the fossil age is abandoned. This means that property owners and property managers will be confronted with various infrastructure adjustments, as an increased number of electric vehicles will require large amounts of electricity. 

Why does it make sense for real estate owners and managers to start thinking about adapting the infrastructure for electric vehicles today?

Many property owners and managers are already receiving requests from tenants that they need a charging station to charge their newly purchased electric vehicle in the parking garage. In most cases, an electrician is hired to install a charging station. In the coming months, requests from other tenants will follow and the need for additional charging stations for their electric vehicles will increase.

Decision-makers often only realize afterwards that various important preliminary clarifications have not been made and no foresighted planning has been made: often different brands of charging stations are installed. The different charging stations make retrofitting an energy management system much more difficult. Other errors also occur: The installations were only designed for one or a few charging stations and thus the system is too small for continuous expansion. It is worth considering at an early stage how the rising electricity costs can be allocated to the individual tenants and how the administrative work involved in billing electricity purchases can be handled. Without forward-looking planning, people often forget to use "intelligent charging stations". These charging stations register the consumption and can allocate and bill this consumption via a backend system. If a property owner subsequently consults specialists to expand his system for a larger number of e-vehicles, it is noticeable that when the first charging stations were installed, strategic thinking and the development of an electromobility concept were neglected. This has already resulted in many owners having to write off invested sums and to partially rebuild the infrastructure for electric vehicles. 

How should property owners and property management companies prepare for electromobility and the associated challenges?

The first question to ask is how far into the future one should look. Experts assume that by 2035, around 50% of all vehicles in Switzerland will be electric or partially electric. This means that 50% of all passenger cars must have a charging connection. This also means that buildings will have to draw enormous amounts of electricity and that the installations will have to transport large quantities of electricity safely. If the vehicles are charged with 16 A current in 3 phases, 11 kW of power per vehicle must be provided for several hours a day. In many cases this means that the house connection must be extended. Furthermore, the property owner must find an energy management system that works with many different brands of charging stations. Ideally, only intelligent charging stations are allowed. These can be connected to a back-end system so that costs can be allocated according to the consumer and billing can be handled without much effort. In addition, energy suppliers will in all probability want to exert influence in the future in order to avoid overloading the power grids at peak times. We are already familiar with this in the case of hot water storage tanks (boilers), which are heated up at night when the load on the networks is low. However, electric vehicles will consume enormously more electricity than hot water heaters in the future, so load control of the networks is essential.

What should be done before installing charging stations?

Due to the multitude of challenges, we recommend that all property owners and property management companies draw up an "Electric Mobility" guide. Especially when property owners have a large number of different buildings, it makes sense to develop such a guide at an early stage. When a tenant makes an inquiry about a new charging station, the person responsible for the building will be familiar with the necessary specifications and will know how to proceed. Such a guide is usually developed in workshops by e-mobility experts together with the property owners and managers and can protect against many costly mistakes. The expenses that are used for such a concept help to avoid bad investments and save costs in the long run.

Below are some examples of topics that are dealt with at such workshops:

• How many e-vehicles can we expect?
• How can electricity purchases be invoiced and passed on to the tenants?
• Which IT is used?
• Which energy management system is appropriate for our building?

And much more ...

AMEDIO is the consumer-friendly charging solution for industry and commerce from the charging station manufacturer MENNEKES, which has been developing charging columns and wallboxes in the AC sector for over ten years. 

As a professional among the charging stations, this new product offers a strong overall package for building an intelligent and future-proof charging infrastructure. It is equipped with the latest technology and is especially designed for longevity and sustainability. In addition to the high guaranteed safety requirements, customer-friendly operation and networking capability for implementing requirement-based billing, the new charging point also offers clear system monitoring and load management at the highest level.

The AMEDIO combines modern design and reliable operational safety without compromise. Thanks to the integrated modem and the open communication standard, the charging system can be operated with various billing options, so that charged energy can be billed for itself or the billing processes can be passed on to a service provider. You can read more about our billing solution in the chargecloud newsletter.

Following the motto "arrive, plug in and done", AMEDIO Professional+ PnC enables easy access to electricity without an RFID charging card or app on the smartphone. With "Plug&Charge" according to ISO standard 15118, only the cable needs to be plugged in and the secure authentication and authorization of the vehicle for charging, intelligent charge control and billing is done automatically. The driver has nothing to worry about. This consumer-friendly "Plug & Charge" function offers an enormous gain in comfort and suitability for everyday use.
In the future, the end consumer can enjoy the simple operation and no longer has to deal with the everyday difficulties of charging. All they need is the right electric car equipped with this communication standard. 

Further technical details can be found in the AMEDIO data sheet or simply contact us directly.

As already mentioned in one of our last SPIE E-Mobility Newsletters, we were able to win the exclusive representation of the backend of chargecloud GmbH in Switzerland. With the charging infrastructure software "chargecloud", a system is available which guarantees the access and billing process as well as the control and networking of charging stations.

The chargecloud GmbH was founded by the cloud software provider powercloud, the charging station manufacturer MENNEKES and the Cologne-based power supplier RheinEnergie. With its software of the same name, chargecloud offers the management of existing and new charging stations and comprehensive billing solutions for charging processes. With around 30 employees at the Cologne site, the cloud-based billing system chargecloud is being continuously developed.

chargecloud was recently expanded by a further module. In addition to the contract management of end customers and the tariffing of charging processes, individual charging station owners can now also be connected as partners and thus the charging transactions taking place there can be billed fully automatically.

With the extended application "location partner", additional charging stations can be easily added to an existing network and individually managed. chargecloud automatically invoices the charging processes of its customers. With the new "WhiteLabel B2B App" you are always fully informed about the current status of your charging points.

SPIE E-Mobility is happy to support you from the evaluation to the implementation of your system strategy. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.