Business reasons
This functionality allows potentially for more utilization of a charge station. The functionality allows to configure when a charge station goes to "Idle Mode" and/or automatically stopped and the cable unlocked from the charging station, by enabling the 'Stop on Idle' function.
Example scenario:
Company A has 4 Charge Stations on their company parking spot. Employees start charging in the morning and stay connected until they leave, occupying the CS in the process.
When 'stop on parking' is enabled, the Cable is unlocked and another Driver could unplug it, store the cable and start a new session.
Practical aspects
- The unlocked cable should be stored 'safely', e.g. over the windshield or perhaps in a new hanging mechanism for these type of Charge Stations. Because of this act of trust, it is mainly recommended for places where people have a degree of respect for the rules
- Users need to be informed on-site about 'stop on parking'. Both potential Users to check and identify a unlockable connector as well as the Drivers who wonder why their cable is disconnected
- Normally when the Connector is unlocked at the EVSE, the cable is not unlocked at the EV itself so it can't be stolen. For some vehicle models (apparently Volvo's), once a connector is unlocked, it is also unlocked from the EV. Another reason why EV Drivers need to be informed.
Idle detection and Stop on Idle
By default "Stop on Idle" is disabled, meaning that once the charger goes on Idle mode, the session remains open
Charge Stations don’t have a reliable ‘this car is not charging anymore’ state, which is why we need to build a ‘idle detection’ algorithm. They can go into a 'SuspendedEV' state, meaning the EV is no longer taking any charge.
But from analysis, this is not necessarily working the same way across manufacturers and models and it could be that there is a very minor consumption ongoing, even though the EV is practically full.
Normally nothing happens when a session is in a “Idle Mode” state, but when 'Stop on Idle' is enabled, then the charging session will be remotely stopped by our system,
In this last case, in diagnostics, a flag 'stoppedOnParking' is added, which will indicate whether as session was stopped due to this mechanism or via normal means:
SmartCharging exception:
GreenFlux SmartCharging Profiles are taken into account when deriving a parking state. I.e. if the Smart charging algorithm puts the charging profile to 0 Wh, the state will still be considered 'Charging'.
Stop on parking does NOT work with local/manufacturer specific Smart Charging solutions. Our parking/charging algorithm would be able to identify the charging profile.
Setup
To enable 'Stop on Idle', this can be done in the Charge Station Details screen under the section '5. Miscellaneous - Idle Mode'
By default, the algorithm detects "Idle Mode" if the consumption is less then 300 Wh over 1 hour, calculated each 15 minutes.
User can customize the percentage of the "Idle Mode" from EV Portal selecting a power threshold or the State of Charge as displayed in the image below:
- Idle threshold SoC: accept only values in the range between 70% and 100%.
- Suggested value: 80%.
Not all manufactures support SoC, please make sure that the selected one is compatible
- Idle threshold Wh: accept only values between 300 Wh and 900 Wh.
- Suggested values: 300 Wh per AC chargers and 900 Wh for DC chargers
- Stop Session on Idle : enabled / disabled. If no data is provided, default is disabled.
- SoC is not possible to be enabled if "Time of Use is enabled". Add same validation if user enables "Time of Use" on a Charge station where SoC is enabled
Normally nothing happens when a session is in a Idle Mode, but when 'Stop on Idle' is enabled, then the charging session will be remotely stopped by our system
It is on Charge Station level. So a Location can have individual charge station running this setup.