Charge Point Operators (CPO) continue to face technological and commercial obstacles as they build out EV charging networks. And as governments introduce minimum required standards or use uptime as a condition of funding, CPOs are tackling the challenge of tracking and reporting on charger uptime.
Consumer EV adoption also faces challenges, such as the cost of the EVs themselves and charger anxiety. Whilst CPOs have little influence over the cost of electric vehicles, they do have control over the availability of destination EV chargers.
Including a computerized maintenance management system in a CPO’s technology stack can be a critical success factor in the delivery of a reliable EV infrastructure.
EV charging mobile app
The front end of the EV charging infrastructure technology stack is the customer-centric EV charging mobile app. These apps are run by an eMobility Service Provider (eMSP), and their function is to help EV drivers locate available chargers and pay for a charging session at a private or public charging point.
EV hubs are emerging that aggregate e-mobility partners and connect thousands of users to hundreds of different CPO EV charging stations.
Charge station management system (CSMS)
The CPO manages the operation of the EV charging stations. A CSMS plays an essential role in monitoring infrastructure stability, energy management, and the storage and reuse of various energy sources.
The CSMS will often use an emerging standard such as OCPP to communicate directly to the EV charger and monitor its usage and health status. Others may be proprietary systems supplied by the manufacturer of a particular brand of EV charger and consequently have deeper diagnostic monitoring capabilities. While the data from a proprietary CSMS is potentially more valuable to the CPO, a proprietary CSMS could present vendor lock-in issues as the CPO grows its network.
Computerized maintenance management system (CMMS)
What additional technology component should CPOs consider using to manage the non-functional requirements (reliability, availability, scalability, security, durability, and operability) of their EV charging infrastructure?
A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) addresses these requirements. It is a work order management system for the repair and preventative maintenance of business-critical assets, including EV charging stations and the eco-system of assets around the chargers, such as lighting, canopy, battery storage etc.
A CMMS provides value in tracking supplier SLAs, the lifecycle of assets to plan for future capital asset budgets, repair and maintenance costs, and enabling a compliance task audit trail.
While a chief information officer may be concerned with the CSMS and mobile app components, the operations director and the CFO are more concerned with the data insights from the maintenance management system. The finance and operations teams may want to track the capital cost of an asset, from purchase through to the end of its lifecycle. The procurement team will want to see the history of a supplier meeting its SLAs at contract renewal date.
With automated asset aging reports, the CFO has visibility of next year’s charger station asset replacement budget (without hours of manual spreadsheet wrangling). And the operations team, who understands that a surprise break/fix repair can be costly in downtime (and brand reputation), can use a CMMS to schedule planned preventative maintenance during non-peak operational hours, resulting in a reduction in EV charging station downtime.
Once these components are integrated, this technology stack will enable new forms of automation, data-driven business decisions and incremental innovations, all of which are essential to becoming a competitive and high-growth industry leader in EV charging networks.
Next steps …
Contact us to learn more about how the Techniche EV charging maintenance management system could help you reduce charger downtime and improve your customer experience.
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