In a recent episode of Smart Grid Observer’s Energy Insight podcast, Shana Patadia, head of business development at Synop, shares her thoughts on the role of interoperability, automation, and power management in scaling EV fleets. Below is a partial edited transcript of the conversation.
SGO
For listeners who may not be familiar, could you briefly describe the work Synop does in this field?
Shana
Synop is a fleet charging management platform. What that means is that we are able to do energy management, charging management, and all of that for electric vehicle fleets. We really focus on interoperability because we know how important that is to fleets to have a single place to be able to look to as opposed to having to switch between things. And so we're interoperable with all hardware. And we also try to be interoperable with as much software as is relevant, like telematics or other platforms that our customers may use. So it's really all about helping a fleet’s operations be as smooth as possible, specifically from the charging perspective, but in as many ways as we can help.
SGO
You were recently involved in Jacksonville Transportation Authority's autonomous shuttle program. What do you see as the future of autonomous fleets and their impact on the charging network?
Shana
Yeah, we're really excited about autonomous fleets. As you look at the trends in the past year, the numbers have been small, but they have been trending upward very quickly, which is exciting. I think autonomy is going to bring some new opportunities and challenges to this space. If we just think in a very basic sense, if you look at where the autonomous vehicle pilots are right now, all of them are in city centers. They're not starting out in some more rural area. They're starting right in the middle of Vegas, right in the middle of San Francisco. And autonomy, because of all of these extra loads of cameras and lidar and all the other things on the vehicle, tends to be very, very inefficient from a vehicle/fuel usage or battery usage perspective. And so all of that adds up to meaning you need to charge these autonomous vehicles in the city center. You don't want it driving way out and coming back in. And as folks may be aware, the power grid can be really constrained in city centers. That's a really interesting thorny problem we're going to have to face as we see more autonomous vehicles because they're bringing this really exciting experience and opportunity for people. I think there are a lot of benefits, but I think there's going to be an infrastructure challenge in how we meet their needs. And as a result, I think we're increasingly going to see that there's just not physical space and power for everybody to have their own dedicated depot. So we're going to see increased sharing. And of course, all of these things require really thoughtful hardware and software planning to make them work.
SGO
With Synop increasingly integrating vehicle-level data and becoming more embedded across charging hardware and fleet software, how do you decide which, if any, charging decisions are safe to automate? Does that threshold change as fleets scale up?
Shana
First I want to make sure we frame the word “safe” properly. In the case of charging management software there's really no true kind of safety issue as the word is typically used. The issue that may exist is more around readiness, ease and peace of mind. If we think about the life cycle of a fleet, it's really interesting because when a fleet is small, they don't seem to need a CMS. If you've got two vehicles or three vehicles, I could imagine you're looking at your parking lot and saying, “I can see them from here. I know they're plugged in. What's the big deal?” And then as you start getting that fifth and sixth and tenth and fiftieth vehicle, all of a sudden it's really not manageable anymore. It's hard for you to know whether or not that vehicle got plugged in. Will it be ready on time? Was there a fault? Did it look like it got plugged in, but the plug didn't actually click in? Are you going to spike energy and get a really high utility bill? All of these questions start to arise. Most fleets start with a pilot, they start with two or three and they start in this phase of saying, I don't think I need this. And then very quickly they realize, wow, I really, really need it.
So I would say that as the fleets grow, automation becomes more important because there's just too many things to monitor and deal with. Optimizing the charging management schedule can absolutely be automated, especially with the kind of approach that Synop takes, which is interoperability. When we have your telematics data, we have your charging data, we have the vehicle profile and information, with automation we can send the most optimal schedule to your vehicle, or to each vehicle in your fleet to make sure every single one is ready. Maybe you have one that's just constantly running around the yard and you need that thing charged right away, but maybe you have a box truck that doesn't need to be ready till the morning. The automation in the background can take all of those variables, take into account the site level peaks and then spit that all out.
So you might think that when you have two to three chargers, two to three vehicles, you don't need CMS. But I would argue you do. And the reason that you do is that you need to be able to learn, test out the solution, and be prepared for when you scale up. You don't want to wait until there's an emergency and suddenly you need software and automation to get it. The best time to do it is when you're piloting, even though it's easy enough for you to manage so you can figure out what the right tools are for when you scale.
Read or listen to the full interview here.
Shana Patadia will be speaking in the session "Microgrids for EV Charging Beyond the Grid: Delivering Supplemental Power without Exceeding Utility Site Limits" at SGO’s EV Charging and Infrastructure Summit, North America West, February 24th to 25th in San Francisco. Full agenda information can be found here.