Managing the largest charging park in northern Germany

Introduction

Team utilizes Peak Shaving to reduce the risk of high-performance payments when rare events exceed the estimated capacity of the infrastructure.

“Implementing Peak Reduction with FLEXeCHARGE was a breeze - it's user-friendly, cloud-based setup and management made the process seamless. We have significantly cut down on performance costs, avoiding spikes in electricity usage during peak hours. It is efficient and does exactly 
what we need!” 

- Momme Klockenhoff, Head of eMobility

In the industrious realm of Flensburg, team energie handles everything from electricity, gas, to charging hubs along many of the most travelled avenues. In 2023 team opened northern Germany's largest fast charging hub at the Scandinavian Park. As with most large charging hubs they have a dedicated grid connection in case all chargers are operating at full capacity. At the Scandinavian Park that could be 16 vehicles at 300 KW each - a massive amount. However large capacity does not come cheap, and infrastructures connected to the high voltage grid are subject to what Denmark calls a "Performance Payment".

The performance payment is needed because grid operators need to plan the grid infrastructure to accommodate the highest expected power demand. However, in practice, various commercial activities, like EV charging, can lead to variable power demands on the grid. Thus, grid operators monitor power consumption to pinpoint the origin of abrupt increases in load and calculate performance payments accordingly.

Similar systems exist in Germany, Austria, and other countries, but at its most basic the performance price is designed to encourage efficient electricity consumption and promote the integration of renewable energy sources by creating an economic incentive for users to distribute their electricity consumption more uniformly throughout the day.

Peak Shaving

Even brief spikes in electricity usage can lead a significant increase in the overall electricity bill. A study by McKinsey (link) goes as far as to identify these charges as one of the most significant cost factors in operating a charging hub. And it is easy to see why. A single KW can cost upwards of 200 euros in performance costs and when operating 16 chargers at 300KW it adds up quickly even if the local EV club only swings by once a year.

This is where Peak Shaving comes in. It is a strategy used to reduce electricity consumption during periods of maximum demand. With peak shaving, a consumer reduces power consumption quickly and for a brief period to avoid a spike in consumption. This can be done in various ways from throttling charging speeds to activating battery storage.

At team energie

While we support different forms of peak shaving, we implemented a strategy for team energie which limits the capacity for all chargers at the site based on average utilisation. In practice this means, that after analysing the charging data in the FLEXeCHARGE Platform we could determine a sensible maximum capacity for all chargers that is under their theoretical limit. With a well-chosen limit the normal, day to day, charging business is not impacted as all 16 charge points rarely operate at full capacity. On the rare occasion all chargers are occupied and charging at full capacity the FLEXeCHARGE Cloud analyses the occurring peak and throttles the charging speeds of the connected chargers to stay just under the set limit.

This way team energie can control the load on the grid and thus influence the performance price for the charging infrastructure and tackle the challenge posed by the "Performance Payment" model. Ensuring that their large-scale charging hub at the Scandinavian Park remains both economically and environmentally efficient. By employing Peak Shaving strategies and leveraging the FLEXeCHARGE Platform, they managed to optimize electricity consumption, ensuring that even during peak periods, power demand stays within manageable limits.