Next Generation EV Charging Networks

Lead Proponent

British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT)

Project Objectives

The objective of this project is to reduce barriers to the adoption of EVs in Canada by demonstrating EV infrastructure solutions that are interoperable, minimize grid impacts, and improve the customer’s charging experience.

The objective of this project is the development work associated with commercial projects at full-scale. This involves design optimizations, development work, creating and validating broad feasibility assessment tools, advancing control strategy and plant controls optimization, and optimizing the topside and subsurface design and full-scale design basis. This will result in a flexible reference design that will apply to A-CAES facilities going forward.

This project will expand on the EV charging Network Management System developed by the BCIT Smart Microgrid Applied Research Team. 

Solutions demonstrated through this project will include:

• Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) that enables EV drivers to seamlessly access different charging networks across Canada and the U.S. through one network.
• Load managed charging stations to enable utilities to manage and throttle peak energy demand across the grid.
• Payment Card Industry (PCI)-compliant payment system allowing acceptance of payments through a third part PCI-compliant hosting provider, avoiding the need to store credit card or customer data.

Expected Results

This project will increase global competitiveness for Canadian EV vendors by enabling their products and services to use industry standard protocols and be hosted on data centers within Canada.

Results also include improved interoperability issues between networks, thereby reducing the need for EV drivers to sign up for multiple different charging network accounts when traveling.

Load shared and load managed solutions will decrease costs for both Multiple Unit Residential Buildings (MURBs) and high density urban parking lots.