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It’s a bright sunny day, at the nearby EV charging station. Happy drivers recharge their EVs in a few minutes, splurging on an expensive latte to celebrate their savings, and rush away to start their day. Your charging station beat its own last month’s record with a 20% increase in revenues, best-ever experience scores and rising profits. What a wonderful scenario!
But today’s energy costs and outages make it all look like a pipedream. Don’t be disheartened CPOs! It’s all possible. Battery Boosted EV Charging is here to save the day!
“How’s that?” You ask.
The answer is in intelligent sourcing, storage and fast-charging solutions – In something we have come to know as Battery Boosted EV Charging. And it won’t dry up your capex but drive up your profits. Intrigued? Let’s unravel this liquid-cool solution for you.
Let’s take you back to today, when we see EV sales in India going up
Rising EV sales demand better EV Charging Experiences
In 2024, EV sales in India hit a new milestone, reaching nearly 2 million units sold. While this is an EV penetration of just 7.5% of all vehicles sold, in the next 5 years the Indian government has set a target for 30% EV penetration. This trend is expected to continue. It is expected that 75% of India’s new passenger vehicle sales in 2050 will be electric.
As EVs become mainstream, there is a need for more chargers. Better customer experience needs not just more but better chargers as well. EV owners are looking for faster charging at DC fast chargers and have less patience for slow public chargers. In fact, a study shows (Illustrated in the corresponding graph) that 42% of people consider charging speed as the most important factor while selecting a public charging point. Charging as fast as you can fuel your ICEs, with stations everywhere is the vision.
BYD recently announced a Megawatt charger that can (theoretically) do this today! But it’s not so straightforward. India needs thousands of charging stations that can charge your vehicle in minutes.
More EV fast-charging stations ≠ More reliable fast-charging.
EV charging stations have almost doubled from 6,586 to 12,146 in just one year.i Under the PM E-DRIVE scheme, the Indian government has dedicated ₹2,000 crore to installing 22,100 fast chargers for electric four-wheelers, 1,800 for e-buses, and 48,400 for e-two and three wheelers.ii
Fast charging requires High-power chargers.
However, better charging experience needs faster charging . We are talking driving range of 100 miles in minutes.
This requires higher level chargers, and a higher power rating of your chargers.
In terms of charging time, a 1 kW home charger takes may take around 20 hours to completely charge, while a 120 kW Ultra-fast charger can charge in 25 minutes.
This level of high-power energy is only supplied by the grid..
However, the power grid infrastructure is still in its growing phase, and fast-tracking the process is expensive.
Power grids, as the primary high-energy source.
India’s growing energy demand is putting pressure on grids.
India is a fast-developing economy, and that will mean a significant increase in energy demand from across residences and industries soon. Eventually, this willcreate immense pressure on the electrical grid.
India’s peak electricity demand is 277 GW for FY27 and will be 366 GW for FY32. Add to this the demand created by shifting vehicular energy demand to high-power charging, and we have a situation that grids cannot handle the demand – leading to outages.
You don’t have to wait till 2030as outages are common already.
Prime causes are peak demand, inconsistent grid and weather outages.
All your EV customers like to charge at certain peak times and that will lead to demand spikes. Also, the grid is not consistent everywhere; there are grid downtimes. For example, there are 3.5 hours of daily outage in rural areas, which affects the highway performance of EVs. Further, weather variations can intensify power outages. Outages can increase by 80-220% with intense rain, 20-70% during high wind speed, and by 15-60% during heatwaves . All these grid inconsistencies combined lead to revenue loss for CPOs, as they have to turn away unhappy customers.
Grid energy is expensive too.
Costs vary from ₹4 - 8 per kWh of AC power depending on peak hours and your state. The energy loss from AC (Grid) to DC (Charger) conversion leads to wastage of electricity, further increasing the cost of energy provided to the EV battery.
To deliver high-speed charging, CPOs can choose to upgrade their grid.
Easier said than done.
Grid capacity upgrade is an expensive and painstakingly time-consuming solution.
Upgrading the grid is likely to cost significant upfront capital expenditure and take approximately 180 days to get power capacity beyond 200 kW.
With the growth rate of energy and EV demand, this rate of Grid capacity growth is a major limitation for providing reliable fast charging solutions.
Charge Point Operators need a cost-efficient high-power reliable energy solution
CPOs need to create better fast-charging solutions right now, and in a cost-efficient and reliable way. Your stations need to be able to deliver required power with no or minimal grid upgrades. Such a solution will remove your sole dependency on the grid, take advantage of sustainable energy sources, drive down capex and opex for upgrades and minimize losses and outages. The key criteria that will work for you are:
- Lower cost energy sources. You really need a high-power capacity upgrade that is low on capital expenditure and on operations and maintenance costs.
- Consistent supply to EV chargers. You need a choice of energy sources, so that at least some of them are available. And you can store energy when its available at the lowest cost, so that you can use it when its needed.
- Resilience to weather related outages. In India weather and inconsistency of operations will continue to cause havoc. You need a way to ensure that your solution is robust and even if grid-connections fail, backups are up despite weather challenges.
- Reduction in energy loss. With so many switches between High voltage to low voltage and AC to DC, energy is lost in conversions and transmission. You need a solution that minimizes losses using DC to DC and short transmission solutions. Refer to illustration for various energy losses.
- Intelligent / Automated management of the above 4.
With varying sources, energy costs across times, and vehicle energy requirements, the system complexity goes up. You need an automated solution that optimizes for uptime and cost across all the criteria.
There is good news! All of the above criteria are met by Battery Boosted EV Charging, and it provides some further benefits.
Let’s dive in.
Battery Boosted EV Charging provides a comprehensive solution
The solution for reliable, cost-efficient, fast-charging EV experience is using a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) that is designed for EV charging. We call it the Battery Boosted EV Charging System (B-BECS). It solves for each of your criteria and helps CPOs enhance their profitability to the next level by providing these features:
Usage of multiple energy sources, including low-cost renewable energy. Battery Boosted EV Charging helps CPOs diversify their energy sources, across grid options and beyond the grid. There are renewable energy options available that cost less than the grid. For example, the average cost of solar power ranges from ₹2.50 to ₹3.50 per kWh, which is significantly less as compared to the grid costs. With a mix of the types of energy sources, the CPO can intelligently leverage the price variability of grid vs renewable energy sources to drive efficiencies. However, adding other energy sources has additional costs associated with it. Installing a solar plant requires real estate and solar panel investments.
Battery based energy storage, that can store low-cost energy when available and provide when needed. Multiple energy sources allow for better cost control but do not fully resolve intermittent power unavailability. There is a fundamental need to store power when available, preferably during off-peak hours or from an alternate source, and use it when needed.
Robust design, with liquid cooling, that avoids outages. Battery boosted EV charging is also resilient. It can withstand tough weather conditions like high temperature fluctuations (-40 °C to 80 °C), ensuring lower outages leading to low/no revenue loss. Battery systems used in EV charging have ~25% low maintenance costs as they consist of IP65 liquid-cooled batteries and power electronics, which ensures a long lifespan of the battery systems. This is the primary reason for the low operational expense of managing a Battery Boosted EV charging station.
Significantly lower losses with Local DC generation to DC transmission. Energy sources like solar and battery storage systems have another advantage! Photovoltaic cells (PV cells) generate electricity as DC power. So, there are no conversion losses as with AC current from the grid.
An overall Intelligent PMS (Power Management System) that orchestrates energy sources and storage. This Intelligent system integrates solar and grid battery charging, enables off-time, off-grid charging to save electricity costs by prioritizing more economical energy sources.
While your fellow operators pay the grid approximately Rs 6 per kWh, you will end up spending upto ₹3 per kWh (to solar) during peak charging time!
Battery Boosted EV Charging has more to offer.
Battery boosted EV charging has a secret weapon…It is Bidirectional!
Imagine your Battery pack is full, it is peak summer, and power cuts are frequent. By supplying energy back to the grid, you create an additional revenue source while helping stabilize the grid.
CPOs can even take this aspect one step further by creating an additional revenue source by enabling Vehicle to Grid (V2G) using the bidirectional system.
Battery Boosted EV charging and CPO profitability
CPOS can now create a win-win situation for the entire EV Charging ecosystem, from grids to charging systems. This is because the economics is fundamentally better. In some cases, the overall savings of a battery boosted EV charging is up to 80% as compared to installing grid updates-based charging.
A Battery boosted EV charging system uses the best of both worlds – it harmonizes the benefits of both the power grid and the renewable sources.
Capital Expenditure of Battery Boosted EV charging systems is lower than costly grid upgrades. The overall cost of installing grid updates is a much higher capital expenditure. While Solar panels and batteries are a fraction of what grid updates will cost for the same MW of power. This leads to nearly 80-89% saving in upstream capex.
Low maintenance costs and low losses.
When we combine the overall benefits of lower DC to DC losses, better maintainability due to liquid cooling and wider options of energy sources, it becomes clear that operational expenses are significantly lower for BECS.
The total economics are better due to lower capex and opex.
Add to that the benefit of higher customer serviceability due to faster-charging, better customer experience led repeat business and potential revenue sources due to bi-directional energy sale – and we have an all-star winner.
Overall, CPOs will generate better EV Charging Experience. This will provide higher revenues, with better overall costs, and significantly enhance their profits.
Explore how Exicom’s solutions can improve your charging station efficiency. Contact us today.
Battery Boosted EV charging and CPO profitability
CPOS can now create a win-win situation for the entire EV Charging ecosystem, from grids to charging systems. This is because the economics is fundamentally better. In some cases, the overall savings of a battery boosted EV charging is up to 80% as compared to installing grid updates-based charging.
A Battery boosted EV charging system uses the best of both worlds – it harmonizes the benefits of both the power grid and the renewable sources.
Capital Expenditure of Battery Boosted EV charging systems is lower than costly grid upgrades. The overall cost of installing grid updates is a much higher capital expenditure. While Solar panels and batteries are a fraction of what grid updates will cost for the same MW of power. This leads to nearly 80-89% saving in upstream capex.
Low maintenance costs and low losses.
When we combine the overall benefits of lower DC to DC losses, better maintainability due to liquid cooling and wider options of energy sources, it becomes clear that operational expenses are significantly lower for BECS.
The total economics are better due to lower capex and opex.
Add to that the benefit of higher customer serviceability due to faster-charging, better customer experience led repeat business and potential revenue sources due to bi-directional energy sale – and we have an all-star winner.
Overall, CPOs will generate better EV Charging Experience. This will provide higher revenues, with better overall costs, and significantly enhance their profits.
Explore how Exicom’s solutions can improve your charging station efficiency. Contact us today.
Glossary
- Battery boosted EV charging
Battery-Boosted EV charging utilizes energy storage (batteries) to bridge the gap between grid limitations and charging demands, allowing for high-power charging even in areas with limited grid capacity.
- Grid/Power Grid
A "grid" or "Power grid" refers to a network of powerlines and equipment that delivers electricity from power plants to consumers, encompassing generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure.
- Renewable energy
Renewable energy sources, like solar, wind, and geothermal power, are derived from naturally replenished resources.
- CPO
A CPO is an eMobility industry player that builds EV charging sites and ensures optimal EV charging operations.
- AC
Alternating current (AC) is an electrical current that periodically reverses direction. This means the flow of electrons constantly changes direction, typically oscillating in a sinusoidal pattern.
- DC
Direct current (DC) is an electrical current that flows in one constant direction. Common sources of DC include batteries, solar cells, and fuel cells.
- kWh
A kilowatt-hour (kWh) is a unit of energy, specifically a measure of the amount of electricity consumed, representing the energy used by a 1,000-watt appliance running for one hour.
- Photovoltaic (PV) cells
Photovoltaics (PV), or solar cells, are devices/semiconductors that convert sunlight directly into electricity through the photovoltaic effect.
- Ingress protection (IP)
Ingress Protection (IP) is a rating system that measures how well an enclosure protects against dust, liquids, and other objects.
- Vehicle to Grid (V2G)
Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology enables electric vehicles (EVs) to not only draw power from the grid but also to send power back to it, acting as a mobile energy storage system.
- Capex
Capex is an acronym for capital expenditure. It refers to a company's long-term investments in fixed assets (like property, plants, and equipment) to facilitate future growth and operations.
- Opex
OPEX is an acronym for operating expenses. These are the costs a business incurs to run its day-to-day operations.
- ₹
The Indian rupee sign ⟨₹⟩ is the currency symbol for the Indian rupee, the official currency of India.
