EDF Renewables North America has acquired Los Altos, Calif.-based PowerFlex Systems, a provider of managed electric vehicle (EV) charging technology.
PowerFlex’s patented technology was incubated out of Steven Low’s NetLab research laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The optimization algorithms and methods were the outgrowth of a research program supported by grants from a variety of sources, including the National Science Foundation, ARPA-E, the U.S. Department of Energy, Southern California Edison, the California Energy Commission’s CalSEED program, Caltech’s Resnick Institute, Rothenberg Innovation Initiative, and the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
PowerFlex’s Adaptive Charging Network (ACN) technology enables site hosts to maximize the delivery of electricity to EVs while reducing or eliminating the need for utility upgrades by managing charging depending on driver’s demand, building load, on-site generation and other variables.
“For California to meet the 2030 goal of 60 percent renewable energy and 5 million EVs, we need to deploy hundreds of thousands of low-cost workplace charging stations that promote daytime charging to prevent curtailment of solar,” says George Lee, CEO of PowerFlex. “Orchestrating the seamless coordination of variable production from solar with the flexible load from EV charging will be critical to the long-term health of our grid. PowerFlex provides the solution to do exactly that.”
EDF Renewables’ distributed solutions group originates, develops, builds and operates customer-focused renewable energy projects that incorporate solar, storage, EV charging and energy management.
“Our commercial and industrial clients are realizing how important it is to provide cost-effective electric vehicle charging to retain their employees and their customers,” notes Raphael Declercq, executive vice president of distributed solutions and strategy at EDF Renewables. “By incorporating the PowerFlex technology alongside our existing solar, storage and energy management offering, we are now able to provide building owners and facility managers with a single energy ecosystem where all assets work in concert to deliver clean, reliable and affordable carbon-free power when and where it is needed.”