Managing the impact on the electric distribution network of rapid of electric vehicle adoption

Many electric utilities have begun piloting Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations with a number of manufacturers, including Siemens. As a result of working with these EV charging station manufacturers, utilities have developed a good understanding of prevailing technology. While utilities consider options like selling or recommending preferred EV charging stations to new EV owners in their service territory, a trend has emerged where new EV owners purchase charging station technology without notifying the utility based on recommendations from their EV dealers. It is important for the utilities to be aware of customers in their service territories that are installing EV charging stations in their homes and businesses in order to plan for the required distribution network upgrades to serve these stations. Siemens has worked with a number of utilities to discuss their business requirements for a software solution envisioned to manage the installation and use of EV charging stations in their networks. This paper reviews both the problem these utilities are trying to solve together with their functional and integration requirements for a comprehensive EV charging station management system which can support utility programs including critical peak pricing programs, demand response, outage management, etc.