Today we'll explore the topic of when to separate EV charging station selection from electrical infrastructure upgrade project. In some ways, if you are already thinking of this, you probably have a preference to separate them. The reason could be as simple as that electrical supply technologies are very stable (transformers, wiring, conduits, etc.) while EV charging technologies (charging standards, software capabilities, etc.) are evolving rapidly. Let's unpack this into several scenarios.
Scenario One: First Pilot Site
Imagine that you just started out on the transportation electrification journey (don't worry, this is pretty much everyone else!), and you like to set up a site to "try things out". In our opinion, this is one of the few scenarios that you would benefit from including charging stations in your electrical infrastructure upgrade project. You may execute one project with a trusted partner, and then gain operational knowledge of EV charging. Please note that the project can fail horribly (we have heard!), yet the knowledge and learning are still valuable.
Scenario Two: Prior Study & In-house Experience
This is when you have already concluded transportation electrification studies to assess your current electrical capacity, internal and external charging demands, current charging technologies, and a roadmap to success. We at PortFi have long advocated for our clients to become experts themselves. And clients select us because we and our product resonate on this front.
Gaining and growing in-house knowledge is invaluable to adapt to rapidly evolving EV charging technologies. Just because of this evolving nature, your study assumptions and recommendations may already become outdated by the time you're ready for your electrical infrastructure project. It's therefore critical to re-evaluate your most suitable EV charging solution at the time of project administration, and again at EV charging station deployment. In this scenario, the last thing you want is to lock in your EV charging station selection at the beginning of an infrastructure upgrade project (which can drag on for 1-2 years) and to live with overpayment and miss out on technological advancement, during the course of the project, or even worse, in the subsequent 5-10 of the useful life of charging stations.
Scenario Three: Already have Some Charging Stations
Organizations and businesses sometimes reach out to PortFi and inquire whether our hardware and software can be programmed to work with their existing charging stations. The answer is Yes, yet we always like to further explore the assumptions behind this question.
One important notion we like others to understand is that EV charging stations are wear & tears, just like cars or laptops, and they need to be recycled and replaced every 5-10 years. With the rapidly evolving nature of charging technologies, any EV charging station manufactured today is better in almost all aspects than any one manufactured 5 years ago. Therefore, it's a lot more important to focus on the upcoming charging needs for your electrified transportation, than to only replicate what you already have.
Unlike charging stations, the electrical infrastructure is a permanent capital investment. EV charging equipment and software nowadays are already flexible enough to work with any kind of electrical infrastructure. Therefore, it's intuitive in this scenario that EV charging station selection should be a separate decision from the electrical infrastructure project, as well as your existing charging station assets.
Conclusion
Regardless of where you are on your transportation electrification journey, it's never wrong to gain knowledge of the rapidly evolving EV charging landscape, and it's always worth it to consider a wide variety of EV charging solutions as you do. If you are about to administrate your next EV charging infrastructure project, be sure to build in flexibility to allow exploring the latest EV charging solutions that best suit your needs. We at PortFi are always available and ready to help. Book a demo today!