Electric Vehicle Charging

This case study shows how one customer employed Siretta M2M solutions in being able to monitor their mobile electric vehicle charging bays for use, performance of the charging bays, any service needs and crucially payment for the charging by the general public. The Electric Vehicle charging market : Billions of dollars have been spent by auto manufacturers and governments to speed up the adoption of electric vehicles. As a result of this, the uptake of electric vehicles has increased to 3.2 million vehicles between 2010 and 2015 with a CAGR of 106 percent! (Pike research). This is due to the increased energy security, environmental and economic benefits of Electric Vehicles or EVs. The rapid expansion of the market is also due to the introduction of high volume Electric Vehicles by automakers in the SUV segment. Consequently, there is a huge demand for Electric Vehicle charging stations which has resulted in cross-industry and cross-government collaboration. Who are Elektromotive? Meet Elektromotive, a UK based designer, manufacturer, seller and operations and maintenance provider of Electric Car charging stations, suitable for all requirements. Elektromotive are pioneers in the Electric Vehicle charging station technology. Reported as Europe’s no.1 EV supply equipment vendor by Pike research, Elektromotive are also the first company to operate charge point user networks along with other technologies that are now industry standard. Technology that adapts to business requirments: In order to maximise the viability, usability and adoption of the technology, it is critical that the charging stations are available for vehicles at all times. Thousands of charging points are located in different locations across continents and increasingly in remote locations. Again, for this to be a fossil fuel replacement techgnology, an ‘always on’ mentality has to be applied to it. This then means secure data connections that are reliably always on are required for payment as well as for predictive maintenance of the charging stations. Inevitably there will be maintenance required and no doubt repairs. The mobile nature of charging stations meant that a broadband connection was not always available where required. Apart from that, given the minute amount of data that is exchanged between the charging station and the back office, a broadband connection is not a cost effective solution. As part of the feasibility process for connecting charging stations wirelessly for the payment etc, various short range and long distance wireless technologies were tested. GSM mobile communication was selected over all the others as the operating technology for connecting the charging stations due to the vast mobile network availability almost everywhere as well as the cost effectiveness with minute amounts of data being transmitted. GSM also offers multiple methods for connectivity such as data over GPRS, CSD or via SMS giving a good element being able to connect one way or another. Complete and bespoke solution from Siretta: Siretta, the UK based designer, manufacturer and integrator of complete M2M solutions for the Internet of Things was asked by Elektromotive to help with the process of how to create the wireless link. Through collaborative requirement analysis, Siretta offered a custom solution based on the Siretta linkCONNECT modems which incorporated some bespoke software for Elektromotive. "We understand the mission critical nature of Electric Vehicle charging stations. Therefore a turnkey GSM connectivity solution that would easily integrate into the existing technical and operating model was required. Siretta linkCONNECT modems offer a secure and uninterrupted connection with GPRS, CSD and SMS, allowing us to add redundancy measures as required. Software customisation to address operation specific requirements was also required. The ability to remotely monitor charging stations over the mobile network as well as change different settings at the charging stations meant that Elektromotive are always in the driving seat” said Shak from the wireless applications team at Siretta. What makes Siretta stand out? “We had a requirement for a wireless connectivity solution that would be secure and uninterrupted. We had tried various third party solutions from Siretta’s competitors. However, the Siretta linkCONNECT modem solution was the most robust and resilient when it came to connectivity. Also we were able to use Siretta’s long expertise and experience in this field. As a UK based organisation, Siretta was also most suited to us geographically. In addition, Siretta’s experience on the Network Service side meant that technical collaboration with the service provider was a no brainer. This enabled us to fine tune the solution down to the last microscopic detail” said Patrick Baroni from the engineering team at Elektromotive. Siretta offer cross-industry and platform agnostic M2M connectivity solutions for the IoT. Check out our customisable wireless range of solutions to find out what we can do to connect your application.