Piecing together the charging infrastructure reliability puzzle

Rapid growth in EV charging infrastructure requires rapid adaptation and big-picture perspective.

A quality customer charging experience begins with a quality charger, but the charger itself is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to providing a smooth and seamless charging interaction.

A holistic approach to the entire process is required to achieve a highly positive end user experience. This begins with the design and development of a charger that is inherently safe, reliable and well manufactured, with quality parts and iterative generational experience; applying lessons learned each time a product update is released. However, the charger is only one puzzle piece. Throughout the entire lifecycle of the charger site, from planning to operation through its whole operational life, conversations among all of the players are necessary; with the utilities, with the manufacturer, with the service provider, with operations, with the installers, with the customers. There must be a collaborative operational model in order to achieve commercial success, as well as EV driver delight.

At ABB E-mobility, we pride ourselves not only on providing a reliable engineered product, but also a world class service network to keep that reliable engineered product up and running smoothly. Our chargers are backed by a team of qualified professionals with decades of experience within other critical power industries; where unplanned downtime represents drastic consequences. ABB E-mobility’s approach begins with the charger but goes so much further than just the hardware itself.

Service level agreements (SLA’s) are one method of empowering the customer to take charge of their own destiny when it comes to reliability, and minimize uncertainty for when charger owners and operators will receive support. SLA’s provide structure and support, allow our customers to prepare for the unexpected, and mitigate the risk of surprises when it comes to charger uptime.

Best practices to ensure reliability, all of which can be supported by an SLA:

• 24/7 Remote monitoring and diagnostics

• Preventative Maintenance & Corrective Services

• On-call support from trained technicians

• Spare Part Availability

  Beyond the charging hardware and service required to support and maintain the hardware, other factors play a key role in ensuring charger uptime and a positive user experience. These factors include the following:

• Experienced and qualified installers

• Experienced network software provider

• Thoughtful site design

• Site Connectivity

• Hardware and network interoperability

  ABB E-mobility takes each of these puzzle pieces into account in our comprehensive approach to charging infrastructure. It is no easy feat for charger owners and operators to achieve 97% uptime. We approach (and recommend approaching) this challenge through a collaborative method that considers the entire charging infrastructure picture.