Skip to main content
search

Electric Vehicle ChargingCase Study exploring the challenges faced with electric vehicle charging by Elektromotive

Electric Car Charging

Electric Vehicle Charging

This case study details a key customer solution which uses the Siretta linkCONNECT IoT solution to enable them to monitor and control their electric vehicle charging bays over the mobile network. In addition, they were able to enhance their solution with the following:

  • Monitor the performance of the system
  • Check charger bay usage patterns
  • Check operating status and initiate maintenance as required
  • Take secure payments for the service
  • Update charging rate for the general public

The Electric Vehicle Charging market:

Billions of dollars have been spent by automotive manufacturers and governments to speed up the adoption of electric powered and hybrid powered 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 (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?

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 technology, an ‘always on’ mentality has to be applied to it. This then means secure data connections that are reliably and 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 via a wireless facility 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 already vast mobile network availability almost everywhere as well as the cost effectiveness given the minute amounts of data being transmitted. GSM also offers multiple methods for connectivity such as data over GPRS, CSD or via SMS giving a high probability of being able to connect one way or another.

The complete solution from Siretta:

Siretta, the UK based designer, manufacturer and integrator of complete IoT solutions for the Internet of Things was asked by Elektromotive to help with the process of how to connect their charge bays to a central location using a reliable cellular wireless link. Through collaborative requirement analysis, Siretta offered a custom solution based on the Siretta linkCONNECT modems which incorporated the linkCONNECT software with a custom configuration for Elektromotive. “We understand the mission critical nature of Electric Vehicle charging stations.” Therefore our turnkey GSM connectivity solution enabled Elektromotive to easily integrate their charging solution into their existing operating model.

Siretta linkCONNECT modem solutions offer a secure and uninterrupted connection with 2G/GPRS, 3G/UMTS and fallback to CSD with remote SMS configuration. This allows the linkCONNECT solution to offer redundancy and to maintain connections to the remote equipment as required. Custom configuration was also offered to address Elektromotive’s specific requirement. The ability to remotely monitor charging stations over the cellular network and change settings meant that Elektromotive are always in the driving seat.

What makes Siretta stand out?

left_quoteWe 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 solution was the most robust and resilient. We were also able to take advantage of Siretta’s extensive expertise and experience in the field of connecting devices together.right_quote

 

Quoted Patrick Baroni from the engineering team at Elektromotive, he went on to say…

blankAs a UK based organisation, Siretta was also most suited to us geographically and Siretta’s experience with network service providers meant that collaboration with the service provider was a no brainer. This enabled us to fine tune the solution down to the last microscopic detail.blank

 

Siretta offer cross-industry and platform agnostic connectivity solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT). Check out our customisable wireless range of solutions to find out what we can do to connect your application.

Close Menu