Energy Production

Electricity in Switzerland is now produced CO2-free. This is due to the high proportion of CO2-neutral electricity generated by hydropower and nuclear energy. Switzerland is a model student in international comparison. The facts and figures, as well as comparisons with neighboring countries, clearly demonstrate this.

Electricity Maps lets you view worldwide electricity production, imports and exports on a map.

With a simple example calculation, we hope to dispel the myth that electric cars consume excessive amounts of electricity. To begin with, even if all vehicles in Switzerland would be electric only, we would not require one kilowatt hour more of electricity than we do today: in the biggest Swiss oil refinery in Crissier, 1.5 kWh of electricity is required for every liter of gasoline refined from crude oil. The figure for diesel is even higher than 2.5 kWh. Today, all registered vehicles consume approximately 10 liters of gasoline or 6 liters of diesel per 100 kilometers. So that’s 15 kWh of electricity, not including pumping, tanker, train, and road transport, as well as pumps and lights at the filling station. However, with 15 kWh, an e-car can already travel 100 miles.

Electricity is supplied to the house as three-phase (3-phase) and distributed in the house as alternating current (1-phase)

An alternating current socket has three poles: one of the three phases (L1, L2, or L3), the neutral, and the protective earth. A three-phase socket has five poles: all three phases, neutral, and protective earth.

Individual household AC sockets are each connected to only one of the phases (outer conductor), the neutral conductor, and the protective conductor, whereas three-phase sockets provide all three phases, the neutral conductor, and the protective conductor. They are intended for connecting particularly powerful devices, such as powerful electric motors and electric car chargers. If a three-phase socket can supply 32 A, for example, this results in a maximum power of approx. 3 – 230 V – 32 A = 22 kW, i.e. six times more than for a single-phase AC socket with 16 A, which supplies a maximum of 3.7 kW. A factor of 3 is brought by the mere fact of having three phase lines, and a further doubling brings twice the current of 32 A.

Charging Modes

Car charging is not the same as utilizing standard electronic equipment. Charging using a home plug is also an option, although it takes significantly longer. It is best to connect an automobile to a three-phase outlet while charging it.

However, this three-phase connection is not the same as previously mentioned. In reality, unless you wish to perform pirouettes with the automobile, three-phase electricity is not required here.

Although the arrangement is the same as for three-phase current sockets, the current is pulled from each phase via the neutral conductor, thus each phase supplies 230V. The chart shows the connection’s structure.

Depending on user group EV charging can be separated in the following user groups and capacities:

Charging with AC: AC electricity is easier to transport, while DC electricity is easier to store. Thus, the electricity is transmitted to the car as AC and converted in the car to be stored as DC in the battery. From the battery, it is converted back to AC and sent to the drive.

Charging with DC: The step of conversion from AC to DC can also be brought forward so that the current coming into the car can be stored directly. This requires a special device and a plug suitable for it. Because the rectifiers outside the car are usually larger and therefore more powerful than the built-in ones, the charging time is shortened, which is the whole point of DC charging.

Charging Roaming

We’ve all heard the word “roaming.” When you go to another country and turn your phone back on after arrival, it automatically connects to a local network. You can phone, text, and use the internet without having to sign up for another network contract. This is comparable to roaming in electric vehicle (EV) charging. In essence, EV roaming enables EV drivers to use a single customer account to charge their vehicles outside of the network of their charging service provider. As worldwide EV sales continue to rise, EV roaming is here to ensure that service providers can keep up with the current EV boom.

Electric vehicle roaming must be functional and reliable in order for electric vehicles to be widely adopted. Roaming networks provide access to thousands of charging stations across the world. With a variety of EV charging alternatives, EV drivers may forget about range anxiety, which is still a major concern that prevents people from getting an EV. Roaming provides EV users with a consistent and hassle-free charging experience regardless of where they drive. The ChargeEasy solutions always provide access to a variety of roaming network and can also integrate your network in other public charging network to enable you to earn money with your visitor parking.

Charging Scenarios

In total, Zayer and Stein have identified five charging scenarios around which providers can develop business models:

1. Road Charging: Fast-charging stations are needed for this, they must function reliably and quickly, the locations must be chosen sensibly and additional comfort is required, for example in the form of toilets, free Internet or a roof. The carmaker Tesla has built up its own network for this purpose, and established providers such as the service station operator Aral are also pushing forcefully into this business. And newcomers like Fastned also want to have their say.
2. Destination Charging: Highly frequented locations such as supermarkets or restaurants, where customers spend longer periods of time, are attractive. Crucial for providers: trouble-free operation and competitive prices. The race is already fiercely contested, warns Zayer.
3. Home Charging: In the future, it will no longer be just about the classic wallbox. Smart home services will also be in greater demand. Start-ups such as ChargeEasy, big names such as Volkswagen with its subsidiary Elli, and also traditional electricians are pushing into this business.
4. Workplace Charging: Here, too, the success factors will be simple operating models and low prices. The provider market is similarly diversified as for charging at home
5. Smart Energy Services: Those who gain reliable access to a high number of parked vehicles win. Bain sees the greatest potential around offices, factories and residential areas. Zayer and Stein expect that such services could account for around one-third of total sales in the charging industry by 2030.

Different skills are needed for all five use cases. Initially, therefore, there are likely to be successful specialists in each niche. “Later, however, we expect cooperations and mergers,” says Eric Zayer. “Then major players will emerge that offer everything from a single source.”

Load Management

The Basics:

More charging stations in the facility equals more power usage. However, each housing connection has a limited amount of energy that it can supply. As a result, it is frequently believed that electric vehicles would overload the building’s grid connection. After all, if the residents or users of a property demand more energy than the connection can provide, there is a risk of overloading. There are two ways for dealing with this: strengthening the grid connection or implementing intelligent load control. The former guarantees that the house connection can supply more energy. A strengthened power connection, on the other hand, is expensive and, depending on the site, may not even be feasible. In contrast, intelligent load management distributes available energy to all customers. In simple terms, load management means distributing the available power amongst any plugged-in equipment and devices.

Proficient EV load management units provide the possibility to utilize information such as a variety of energy pricing tariffs and prioritize customers according to user profiles that can be steered via Apps. ChargeEasy usually installs such load management units. The newest generation of EV load management systems can also be integrated with different wallbox types and brands. This way we guarantee full flexibility and integrate existing installations in one system.

An Example:

Let’s consider a parking lot with 50 spots and 50 chargers. In most cases, it is rare that all 50 chargers will be used at the same time. This could be for a variety of reasons, such as some parking spots are occupied by non-EVs, some vehicles have already finished charging and are simply parked, or the parking lot happens to be quiet at that time of day, etc. Therefore, the site’s total capacity might be significantly less than the power required to use all 50 chargers at the same time, since it is anticipated that not all the chargers will be used simultaneously.

A dynamic load management system ensures that the power is split evenly across all the active chargers safely and efficiently. In the event that the total load at the site exceeds the available capacity of the parking lot, for example, when all 50 chargers are in use, the Load Management system will limit the power supply to the chargers, allowing vehicles to charge but at a slower pace.

This form of managed charging allows more chargers to be installed at a location and grid upgrades can be avoided.

In Short:

Electric car dynamic load management solutions provide you more control over how and when the stations are utilized, allowing you to maximize savings also making use of different energy tariffs and consumption times. Whether you want to add more charging stations to your property immediately or in the future, investing in load management now will save you time, money, and work later on.

ChargeEasy doesn’t install charging systems without dynamic load management units.

Bi-Directional Charging

Electric vehicles with bidirectional (two-way) charging capabilities may be used to power a home, send energy back into the grid, and even offer backup power in the case of a blackout or disaster. Because an EV is effectively a huge battery on wheels, bidirectional chargers allow a car to store inexpensive off-peak electricity or solar power, lowering residential electricity expenses. This developing technology, known as vehicle-to-grid (V2G), has the potential to transform the way our power networks run, with tens of thousands of electric vehicles supplying power concurrently during peak electricity demand.

Today we differentiate 3 forms of bidirectional charging:

1. Vehicle-to-grid or V2G – EV exports energy to support the electricity grid.
2. Vehicle-to-home or V2H – EV energy is used to power a home or business.
3. Vehicle-to-load or V2L – EV can be used to power appliances or charge other EVs.

On the contrary, hardly anybody mentions how complicated the technology is, making charging stations far more expensive. Neither do many people consider the fact that the car can no longer be operated as a “mobile car” since spontaneous journeys are no longer practicable because the battery may have just been discharged at that moment. Car manufacturers do not suddenly want three times as many charging cycles on their batteries, since this would result in shorter life and maybe more warranty claims. In contrast, low-cost excess charging requires only intelligent software and no additional hardware. As a result, it is wiser to rely on intelligent load management systems with software that can be constantly improved.

The number of norms and standards in the EV charging environment keeps on growing and being structured. We’ve collected a few relevant ones for you:

SIA 2060

With the SIA 2060 Code of Practice, the SIA is addressing electromobility. In view of the expected development, new buildings and existing buildings must be equipped with the necessary infrastructure. The information sheet therefore provides guidelines on the scope of the equipment and shows which aspects must be taken into account in the planning. In addition to the technical framework conditions, the fact sheet also creates the basis for framework conditions by the municipalities and electricity network operators. Comprehensive infrastructures are one of the key criteria for the success of electromobility. The fact sheet focuses on the planning process.

In summary, the following construction stages are described:

A – Pipe for power

Establishment of expansion reserves:

• Empty line infrastructure for electricity and for communication (empty conduits and cable support systems).
• Space reserve in the distributor for the electrical protection devices and any electricity meters.

B – Power to building

Establishment of the connection line (building supply line).

C1 – Power to garage

Power supply line to the charging station, installation of electrical protection devices and any communication cabling. Later, to equip the charging station, it is only necessary to bring down the supply from the line and install a charging station.

C2 – Power to parking

Power supply line to the charging station, installation of electrical protection devices and any communication cabling. Supply line to the position of the future charging station. In the case of the charging station equipment, only the charging station must be mounted or plugged in later.

At ChargeEasy we always make Power to parking (C2) installations to be able to scale the facility as fast and efficient as possible.

OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol)

The Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) is a standardized communication protocol for connecting charging stations to a central system (host or backend). OCPP is now utilized as a universal communication protocol in charging infrastructures across Europe and Asia. Because of a universal communication protocol, charging station operators are less reliant on individual system suppliers. It is the only open standard that allows any piece of hardware to connect with any piece of load management and charging software. Most large charging stations and wallboxes now support OCPP and can thus be networked together. ChargeEasy only installs OCPP-capable charging stations to ensure the system’s long-term viability.

ISO

As this environment is constantly changing here a selection of current ISO and IEC norms:

1. ISO15118 Plug & Charge
   ISO15118 is a standard for vehicle-to-grid communication, specifying the ways the vehicles communicate with charging devices. The standard also defines preconditions for identification with the cable or via Wi-Fi, enabling the charging device and the back-end service to identify the car and its owner when the vehicle is plugged in.
2. ISO 6469-3, Electrically propelled road vehicles — Safety specifications — Part 3: Electrical safety
3. ISO 20653, Road vehicles — Degrees of protection (IP code) — Protection of electrical equipment against foreign objects, water and access
4. ISO 17409: 2020 Electrically propelled road vehicles — Conductive power transfer — Safety requirements
5. IEC 62752:2016 In-Cable Control and Protection Device for mode 2 charging of electric road vehicles (IC-CPD)
6. ISO 23274-2:2021 Hybrid-electric road vehicles — Exhaust emissions and fuel consumption measurements — Part 2: Externally chargeable vehicles