What Airports Need to Know Before Creating an EV Plan Part 2: Choosing the Right Operating System and Managing Your System Effectively
EV charging has become an essential element of parking management, and airports need to create EV plans that will meet their unique charging needs, as well as the charging needs of travelers using airport parking facilities. EV charging can have an outsized impact on airport parking operations. In addition to being an important patron amenity that can give airport parking facilities a competitive advantage of satellite lots, it also provides a new revenue opportunity, potentially making parking operations more profitable.
But for EV plans to succeed, airports must be strategic. They must be sure to select the EV technology that will be meet the airport’s needs, as well as the needs of airport parkers. When airports consider which technology to install, the focus is typically on hardware. This is understandable since there are several different standards, each of which brings different benefits and limitations. However, it’s just as important—if not more important—to choose the right software to run the chargers you select
Equally important is the airport’s EV management plan. Airports have more different types of users than most parking owner offering EV charging. You serve long-term parkers who are traveling, short-term parkers who may just be traveling for the day, and even shorter-term parkers picking up travelers from cell lots or in ride share vehicles. And for airports with electric shuttles and other airport vehicles, management plans must accommodate them too. As essential as your EV charging technology is, how you use the technology is just as important.
Choosing the Right Software
Your choice of EV management software is one of your most important decisions and can make or break your EV charging program. Airports generally serve different use cases with different patron bases, including hourly parkers, permit parkers, and long-term parkers. Or maybe your garages and lots offer different pricing models with hourly parkers paying one rate for charging and VIP or loyalty parkers paying a discounted rate. Not all the major EV software providers can manage such a variety of users, and it’s essential to find a software partner that can handle multiple use cases.
In fact, when selecting an EV software partner, there are several additional capabilities to look for. First, airports should turn to smart charging infrastructure that can automatically adjust the power output to each vehicle based on the total demand and available supply. This dynamic load management system can help manage peak demand times without exceeding the available capacity. Even if this capability isn’t needed now, the airport is positioned properly for the future as EV adoption continues to grow.
Airports may want to participate in demand response programs with their local utility companies. During peak demand on the grid, the airport can temporarily reduce the charging load in exchange for financial incentives from the utility. When choosing an EV management software, it’s important to make sure it can manage a demand response program.
If your software can’t cater to different use cases and patron bases, you won’t be able to serve your patrons adequately. This can put you at a significant competitive disadvantage when trying to attract charging customers—particularly if the satellite lots against which you compete offer more EV options. And if you are locked into a closed system, you can’t just switch to new operation software; you need to either live with your equipment’s shortcomings or rip your chargers out and replace them.
Monetizing EV Charging
How Can Airports Monetize EV Charging?
If you hope to monetize your EV charging equipment, a closed system presents additional disadvantages. First and foremost, you’ll need to share a large portion of your revenues with your EV provider. It makes more sense to install equipment that will allow you to keep the revenues you are generating by offering EV charging.
Sometimes closed system providers even require that users download their mobile app and join their network to charge with their equipment. That’s great for EV hardware provider because they have a captured customer base; but it’s not necessarily good for travelers who want to charge their vehicles in your parking facility. Requiring them to join another provider’s network isn’t exactly the definition of good customer service. In addition to aggravating your customers, this approach dilutes your brand. You want the equipment that you are paying to install, and which is serving your patrons, to carry your airport’s brand, not some third party’s. And you want to have the flexibility to manage your equipment the way you want to, not the way some technology provider dictates.
Where Will Your Electricity Come From?
Because airports are typically located on large discrete footprints, it may make sense to generate some of the energy that’s being distributed via EV charging equipment. Incorporating renewable energy supplied by microgrids, which could even be managed by Distributed Energy Resource Management Systems (DERMS), can reduce the overall load on the grid while providing greener charging options.
Managing Your EV System
The nature of airport parking poses unique challenges when it comes to EV charging. Travelers who drive electric vehicles need to know that their cars will be charged, and they’ll be able to get home after a long trip. At the same time, you don’t want vehicles sitting for days in valuable charging spaces after they’ve been fully charged in just a matter of hours. It’s not unusual for travelers to park their personal vehicles for a week or more. But when EVs sit unused, they tend to “bleed” small amounts of power—up to 5 miles of charge per day—but can bleed more if certain vehicle features are left active. Travelers are going to expect to return to a fully charged vehicle after their trip and airport parking managers are going to have to create EV plans that can accommodate this desire.
The simplest way to handle this challenge is to combine EV charging with valet parking. With a valet-based EV program, drivers drop their electric vehicles at a valet stand and inform staff when they’ll be returning. The EV provider then schedules charging to assure that the vehicle will be fully charged when the traveler returns.
As a general rule of thumb, airports should continuously monitor vehicles to make sure they have at least a 40% charge. That way, if the traveler unexpectedly returns early, there will be a sufficient charge to leave the airport.
For travelers who return as expected, they merely return to the valet station to have their fully charged vehicles delivered to them. In addition to allowing airports to manage their EV resources more effectively by making sure that chargers aren’t tied up unnecessarily by fully charged vehicles, this strategy also provides an additional customer service perk that travelers will appreciate.
Finally, EV charging will soon be available with reservations capabilities. Most airports already offer pre-booking when it comes to parking, and it won’t be long before these same platforms add EV charging to their reservation options. When drivers pre-book their space they’ll be given the option of adding EV charging. Pre-booking platforms already collect data about when the traveler is arriving at the airport and whey they’ll return, and this information will make it much easier to manage EV charging sessions as well.
EV Charging is an Essential Element of Airport Parking Operations
With the increasing adoption of electric vehicles across the United States, EV charging has become an essential element of airport parking operations, and its importance will grow exponentially as the auto industry continues the transition from producing gas-powered cars to building only electric vehicles. It’s essential for airports to implement EV charging software that can meet all the needs of the airport and its EV-driving parking patrons and create management plans that can address the unique requirements of the airport.
Bob Andrews is Founder of Zevtron, an EV Charger Solutions company serving the United States and Canada. He can be reached at [email protected].
