Picture: Terbine
Terbine has announced today an open initiative to digitally bring electric vehicles and EV chargers from all manufacturers as well as power utilities into a unified system called TerbineLink.
The system is designed to synchronise the core elements involved with charging to maximize efficiency and provide a consistent and reliable experience for all EV drivers and fleet operators across America.
Charging will now be painless for drivers regardless of their location. For utilities, the upcoming loads from large groups of high-powered chargers will be made predictable to avoid blackouts, while also enabling vehicle-to-grid transfers.
Newer DC fast chargers use vastly more electricity than older units, leading to large, unpredictable loading and potentially resulting in problems that are new to utilities.
To solve this, TerbineLink will monitor the progress and charge-state of consumer and commercial vehicles, most critically long-haul electric trucks with very large batteries.
Predictions about which vehicles are likely to charge soon and at which charging stations is determined by the TerbineLink system using machine learning technology, which can then be applied by power utilities to load-balance the grid and thus avoid regional brownouts or blackouts. This is also useful to states for planning purposes.
The $900 million in federal money focused on EV charging is called the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, or NEVI.
This month individual states will begin receiving funding allocations intended to increase the number of charging stations along major highways and other key areas. The TerbineLink system brings states the management and operational tools needed to implement NEVI-compliant charging networks.
