Fleet News Group’s editor Marc Sibbald guest hosts the latest podcast to talk with Jonny Parker, CEO and founder of EV Infrastructure group Thundergrid in Aotearoa. Sibbald caught up with Parker on the sidelines of the EROAD Fleet Day held in Christchurch for the first time in February. They talk about how NZ followed the Norwegian model to support EV adoption and how EVs are going to help power NZ.
“We’re basically here to protect the grid,” said Parker describing Thundergrid, adding, an explanation of how increasing demands on the island nation’s power grid could lead to increased brownouts.
He said that by connecting all EV chargers, load can be managed so that, for example, on a cold wintry night when everyone has their heaters on, things like EV charging can be delayed until the load on the grid drops later in the night when people have gone to bed.
“If we do not smartly manage coming load, the grid will need to be reinforced and built a lot bigger,” explained Parker.
NZ power is mostly derived from renewable sources — some 84 percent is hydro, geothermal and wind, with coal and gas plants used to supplement baseload.
“But there is technology coming that will enable EVs to basically harmonise the grid by also injecting into the grid when need be,” said Parker, adding, “That’s called bi-directional energy flow. And it also means that we’re we’re entering a paradigm where the nature of what is a grid changes.”
He said in the future “What we’ll probably end up with is virtual power plants, which could be a home with an EV of a significant battery that can actually inject when the grid needs it.”
Parker and Sibbald also talk about energy analytics, a phrase covering how and when energy is being used.
Parker explains: “It relates to the electricity use within your facility or site. So, if you’re about to add lots of EVs to your facility, you want to make sure they’re fully charged for when they are used. So a good place to start is to figure out: do I have the power?”
“Look at your electricity data and conduct analytics for it. So you start to look at the electricity data and figure out: what is the maximum power that I’m using each day? Then also checking it against all what’s the maximum I’m allowed each day? So you can check it against your fuse rating that’s on the switchboard and see how the power is being used.
“And from that you can ascertain: what is the spare power that I can now offer to EVs? and, you might find you don’t have any, or you might find that you’ve got some but it’s only in the evenings. And so that’s the purpose of analytics: to show when do you have the spare power? And how much can you charge with it?”
Thundergrid was acquired by Swiss-based Landis+Gyr, a leading global provider of integrated energy management solutions operating in more than 30 countries, including in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
