AeroVironment Inc., an electric vehicle (EV) charging company, and eMotorWerks, a provider of intelligent and cloud-connected smart-grid charging solutions, have partnered together to provide both customers and electric utilities across the U.S. with more options and control over EV charging.
By integrating eMotorWerks’ JuiceNet smart-grid EV charging platform into AeroVironment’s line of consumer and OEM EV charging solutions, the companies aim to provide increased charging capabilities to customers and electric demand load aggregation for utilities.
“Our goal is to help our customers succeed by providing them with valuable capabilities, and our new relationship with eMotorWerks helps us achieve that goal,” says Ken Karklin, vice president and general manager of Efficient Energy Systems for AeroVironment. “Like AeroVironment, eMotorWerks is an innovative company, and working together, we look forward to helping EV drivers and utilities proceed with certainty.”
AeroVironment charging solutions with integrated eMotorWerks’ JuiceNet will enable EV drivers to gain benefits that include smartphone, Web and Amazon Alexa voice control over charging; real-time and historic energy usage for cars; notifications of charging status; load balancing two or more EVSEs on the same electrical circuit to share the load while avoiding tripping breakers; and setting charging schedules that correspond to lower utility rates, saving customers money on charging.
For electric utilities, the JuiceNet integration, via open APIs and industry standards such as OpenADR, makes it possible to aggregate fleets of charging EVs. Such a high level of control over the EV charging load allows utilities to modulate energy demand on the grid and to shift and spread out EV charging loads to times when renewable resources are more abundant or energy rates are lower.
The integration of eMotorWerks’ solutions for smart-grid charging enables EV drivers to control their charging via smartphone applications and, in certain geographies, earn frequent charging rewards through eMotorWerks’ exclusive platform and utility partnerships.
In addition, drivers can also optimize the mix of renewable energy used when charging their vehicles. JuiceNet has the capability to increase the relative percentage of renewable energy used to charge a driver’s EV by setting the “Green Charging” feature. Charge times are automatically optimized to match the periods of highest renewable energy generation on the grid. In certain California locations, customers can earn rewards for using this feature, which will be expanding outside of California in the future.