When it comes to EV charging stations, most folks only consider the hardware. However, EV charging solutions are a complete system, each part relying on its connection to another via communication and interoperability. As an EV charging station owner, that means you want insights and access to your stations and that comes through an EV charging platform management system (CPMS). Much like each component in your EV charging solution, not all parts are created equal so understanding what a CPMS should and can do is an important part of making your EV charging solution provider decision.
Quick Link
- What is a CPMS?
- The Difference Between an EV Station Owner and Host
- How a CPMS Helps Manage EV Charging Stations
- Top CPMS Features for EV Station Owners
What is an EV Charging Platform Management System (CPMS)?
A CPMS is what gives you, as a charging station owner or host, visibility into and control over your charge points. What does that mean exactly? Well, that depends upon your EV charging network provider.
While there are some pretty standard features, the amount of control, flexibility, visibility, and support you have can vary widely. For example, some EV charging network providers offer troubleshooting, flexible user & pay models, and robust reporting features that are unavailable with others.
Still, a CPMS allows you to monitor and manage:
- Charger status
- Power usage and power sharing/management
- Charging sessions and history
- Driver/user data
- Software updates
- System alerts
- Revenue per station
- User administration (including hosts)
- And more…depending on your EV charging network provider
Again, what capabilities you have at your disposal, through your CPMS are largely a variable determined by your EV charging solution provider and something you should consider carefully as you make your decisions.
The Difference Between an EV Station Owner and Host
When it comes to your CPMS, you’ll likely want to be able to differentiate between EV station owners and hosts. Much like a computer supplied by an employer, there is often an administrator who maintains complete control over the terminal and a terminal user. As an administrator, individuals can make major changes, updates, and have full visibility; this is the role of the station owner.
A station owner may own several stations at a variety of locations, but across those locations there may be a variety of hosts or administrators, thus the owner has greatest control.
More specifically, the station owner can limit what access and controls a station host has, much like an administrator controls the user’s access. The station host is more like a terminal user who is able to manage some applications, apply some rules or protocols and gain some insight, but ultimately cannot make significant changes to the system without station owner alignment.
Your CPMS should allow you to assign roles to anyone with access, allowing you to monitor, manage, and track any changes to your EV charging stations or the setup.
In addition to controlling and managing charging station administration, your CPMS plays a pivotal role in the success and ROI of your implementation.
How A CPMS Helps Manage EV Charging Stations
While non-networked EV charging stations exist as stand alone entities and must be managed manually, networked EV charging stations can be managed remotely, which greatly enhances their reliability as well as providing countless other opportunities. However, none of those opportunities can be leveraged without a user friendly, flexible, and dynamic CPMS.
First and foremost, a CPMS is only as helpful as its interface is easy to use and intuitive. But, beyond that, what’s important is what you can see and control via that system. For example, if the system has no way of alerting you to issues or that a charging station is offline, none of the other data it provides matters.
In addition to providing charger status, you’ll want to be able to reduce truck rolls by remotely handling system restarts and Tier 1/basic maintenance or updates (NovaBOT is an AI-driven proactive monitoring tool to handle that for you).
Beyond charger status, your CPMS is also equally important when it comes to power usage and management. For example, if you have an array of four EV charging stations and only one driver charging, then power management isn’t an issue, but what about when all four chargers are in use?
Chargers are limited to the power they can pull from the grid. A robust CPMS can enable you to evenly distribute charging across all four EV charging stations at the same rate or you can opt to provide more power to the first station in use, allowing that car to charge more quickly while the others distribute power (among other options). Having that kind of control and flexibility, as well as ensuring you don’t overburden the grid, relies heavily upon your CPMS.
When it comes to revenue management and pricing structures, your CPMS will also let you set rules and prices as flexibly as you need for your business model and even for different chargers. With the right charging solution, you can create user and pricing structures based on a wide variety of factors including date and time, usage, demand, and user/driver.
Finally, your CPMS will handle any reporting functions you need. Whether it’s looking at the ROI of individual charging stations, station uptime and usage. or needing to report on free charging as part of a compensation package (as is coming in the near future, all of that will be handled by your CPMS.
As one can imagine, with so much functionality and much of it vital to maintaining management or monitoring performance, choosing the right EV charging network provider with a robust CPMS can make or break your EV charging station goals and ROI.
Top CPMS Features for EV Station Owners
Like electric vehicles themselves and like charging stations or charging networks, not all CPMS’s are created alike. When choosing your EV charging network, you’ll want to be sure you carefully consider the features of the CPMS. Ultimately, you want support, transparency, and control, but not every CPMS can offer you those. Wondering what to look for? Here’s a short list of the CPMS features you should seek out:
- Simple to use, easy and intuitive interface
- Flexible pricing structures with easy to change pricing rules
- Flexible schedules to adjust power management
- Total visibility into charging groups as well as individual charging stations
- Maintenance and trouble alerts based on your preferences
- Real-time information regarding power usage and demands
- Remote updates and support features including Tier 1 support
- Communicates via OCPP v1.6 or higher or for even more interoperability OCPI, ensuring connectivity with payment and billing, map systems, roaming and more
- Offers robust reporting tools, tailored to your needs, for each aspect of your charging station solution
- Provides and helps maximize revenue generation opportunities
It’s important that EV charging station owners (and hosts) see the CPMS as more than just an administrative tool. Its functionality and versatility, the amount of insight and oversight it provides, is as vital to EV charging success as the reliability of the charging station itself.
Choosing a EV charging solution provider who understands how all parts of the EV charging infrastructure fit and work together is a smart move for an EV station owner. Ensuring that all parts work together not just for station reliability but for ensuring you reap all the benefits that EV charging station ownership requires and relies on for communication and transparency.
If you’re ready to talk to a holistic EV charging solution provider, get in touch with the NovaCHARGE team. Our unique expertise in every element of EV charging solutions means we’ll walk you through the process from site analysis to ongoing support. We’re looking forward to having you join the rEVolution.