Last month, the company launched “Ready for gridX”, a program aimed at strengthening collaboration with OEM manufacturers to improve interoperability in the energy space, including the fields of home energy management and electromobility.
“We launched it because we realised we needed to work more closely with OEMs,” says Philipp Schockenhoff, Team Lead Sales Expansion Markets at gridX, in an interview with Mobility Portal Europe.
He adds, “Often, neither these OEM partners nor gridX are the party offering the end user proposition; rather, we cooperate to provide the best end-to-end product to end user brands.”
The goal is for gridX, as Europe’s leading energy management company, to have a standardised form of cooperation with OEMs.
It is worth mentioning that this program includes both training and technical cooperation with customers such as installers and electricity companies, as well as the necessary integration requirements.
Currently, gridX is working with two partners on “Ready for gridX”: KOSTAL Group – a global, independent, family-owned company based in Germany that develops and manufactures technologically complex electronic and mechatronic products – and GoodWe – a world-leading smart energy solution provider, focusing on the research and manufacturing of PV inverters and energy storage solutions.
The company started with these two partners as a blueprint.
“With these players, the starting point was the same: there is a lack of standardisation across the energy market, in how the interfaces work, how they can connect, what capabilities they have, the frequency of the data, and the accuracy with which we can manage the assets,” says Schockenhoff.
He continues, “The more complex the use case in the future, the more critical it will be to have a reliable cooperation between hardware manufacturers and energy management.”
The Team Lead Sales explains that there is a specialisation of use cases throughout Europe.
“Inverter and electric vehicle (EV) charger manufacturers need to comply with country-specific certifications and regulations,” he notes.
“We handle different use cases and regulations from a software perspective and align with the OEM on how we jointly offer the best end user product without double effort on both sides,” he adds.
Additionally, it is noteworthy that, based on the experience with these two partners, several manufacturers have contacted the gridX team.
“We are already compatible with a wide range of OEMs, so the integration portfolio is quite broad,” comments Schockenhoff.
“But, of course, from our side, we are looking to work with the major European and globally active OEMs on a more strategic level,” he adds.
As mentioned earlier, Ready for gridX helps improve interoperability, but what is its importance for electric mobility?
On the one hand, Schockenhoff refers to the residential use of EV chargers by the end customer.
In this case, it is important to consider if it is connected to a battery, heat pump or a photovoltaic system.
“The way you charge a car at home needs to be interoperable and interconnected with the other assets. This allows for optimising the EV charging to occur, for example, when there is surplus photovoltaic electricity or energy prices are low,” explains the Team Lead Sales.
How to charge, when to charge, and how to feed back into the grid are “essential” and “will only be possible if all assets are interoperable and connected through home energy management.”
On the other hand, regarding B2B applications such as fleet charging or direct current (DC) fast charging, it is also important to be interoperable.
“Regarding DC fast charging, the grid capacity is small compared to the capacity being charged. And while it is good to charge with surplus photovoltaic energy, the optimisation spectrum is not as high because the end customers want to charge when they plug in, especially on the highway,” he comments.
In this sense, he explains: “Here it is about tracking the loads through the grid connection point – via a meter – and optimising the charging infrastructure depending on the loads that cannot be controlled at a site, such as supermarket lighting or heating.”
This is especially important considering the limitations of the power grid capacity.
“Sometimes, charge point operators (CPOs), when they request a grid connection point, have waiting times of up to several years,” says the gridX representative.
He continues, “If CPOs want to scale quickly, they need to take into account capacity flexibilities when the grid operator indicates that capacity is available.”
Additionally, it is important to “split” the signal coming to the grid connection point across the chargers in such a way that the impact on the individual customer is really small, meaning the person “does not realise” they are being managed.
“This is what we are doing, and it only works when there is interoperability between the different chargers, but also at the connection point,” explains Schockenhoff.
It is worth mentioning that gridX is active not only in Germany, its home country, but also, for example, in the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain.
gridX present at Intersolar
Representatives from the company attended the EM-Power fair at Intersolar in Munich.
During the event, most inquiries they received were about the Ready for gridX collaboration model and how the company cooperates with OEMs.
“There were also requests from hardware manufacturers about how they can collaborate with us regarding this label,” says Schockenhoff.
Another inquiry they received was about the company’s potential participation in other fairs.
“This is the key trade fair in Europe because all our customers are present, along with ecosystem partners we need to cooperate with, especially OEMs like those for hardware, batteries, and EV chargers. Also, energy utilities and smart energy companies,” he states.
He adds, “We participate not only in Germany but also in other international events like Solar Solutions Amsterdam or Genera in Madrid.”
About gridX
gridX is Europe’s leading smart energy company based in Aachen and Munich.
With its IoT platform XENON, the company enables future-proof monitoring and management of distributed energy resources.
XENON allows partners to develop and scale energy management solutions faster than ever before.
By partnering with gridX, customers like Fastned are able to install more charging points at sites without the need for costly grid extensions, partners like Soly are able to offer their customers intelligent and integrated home energy management systems.
Read more: V2G, V2B, or V2H? gridX predicts the dominant force in bidirectional charging
