Objective: Monitor and optimize the facility’s energy use and EV charging system at the Jaguar / Land Rover retailer in Budapest, including measuring local energy production and consumption, uncovering inefficiencies, manage the EV charging sessions in tune with the facility’s energy flows. Support energy-saving, peak shaving, and shift EV charging sessions to reduce costs.
Solution: ZenSite was implemented to analyze energy flows and control EV chargers on-site.
Outcome: Jaguar/Land Rover saved 20%, on their energy bill, amounting to €8000 annually, mainly due to peak shaving, load shifting, and optimization of their power purchase contracts.
We collaborated with the retail store of Jaguar/Land Rover in Budapest in a 5-month long project to analyze their energy usage and optimize their EV charger operations using ZenSite. We’ve used ZenSite to run a comprehensive energy and cost analysis, which helped the customer to weigh various options understand their potential impact on the facility’s energy flows, and foresee the related costs. The EV chargers (2 DC and 5 AC) were previously managed with OCPP, however, their operation was not harmonized with the building energy management system or the production of the rooftop solar power plant. Our analysis also supported future planning for solar system extensions.
Our approach at MET3R
Our solution integrates, measures, and controls all internet-connected devices. The only criteria is: that the devices need to be connected to the same network (which we can build out if needed). The dashboard allows the user to control the current status of the devices including the current performance and the charging level of each of the devices. ZenSite’s system allows the user to make changes on the dashboard, such as temporarily restricting, scheduling, and controlling charging.
Hourly average consumption of the chargers, which reveals they’re used in the morning hours. This is bad practice, as peak charging coincides with the morning peak consumption, resulting in very high peaks -> costs a lot. The solution is to shift these charging sessions to off-peak hours
Technical setup
While controlling the EV charging points we were following the industry standard OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol) protocol, but also moved beyond the standard where it was necessary and possible. OCPP cannot handle changing boundary conditions, for instance, the amount of energy available for charging with dynamically changing on-site consumption and production. To inform chargers about available capacity we’ve installed our gateway that interfaced between ZenSite, the building’s legacy EMS, and the chargers. Thus we created a complete overview of all facility- and charging-related energy flows and provided a single interface to monitor and exercise control over these processes.
Identifying the average daily peak, that happens in the morning hours (dotted red line)
Identifying the facility’s absolute peak energy use
Disaggregating this peak energy use to reveal the contribution of EV chargers. The conclusion: EV charging contributed to the morning peak, which led to very high peak consumption. Reducing that by shifting the charging session to later the day was the main source of economic savings
Result: our client saved €8000 a year
Deploying ZenSite created unprecedented transparency for the client over their energy- and related financial transactions. This was the first time managers had oversight and understood their overall energy use, which empowered them to act upon this data and optimize the facility’s operations. Significant savings were achieved by peak shaving and shifting charging to off-peak periods, making the control process more responsive to energy flows and ultimately easier to manage. The process of controlling the chargers has become not only easier but was made responsive to the facility’s energy flows. After several months of using the new energy management software, the results were noticeable in user experience and the reduction of the monthly energy bills.
