Question 1

What is electric vehicle smart charging in a fleet depot?

Accepted Answer

Control over how much power each session draws — modulating, pausing and re-prioritising vehicles against a live site limit — rather than each vehicle taking whatever its charger gives.

Question 2

Do I need dynamic load management, or are fixed per-charger caps enough?

Accepted Answer

Fixed caps suffice only if every gun is occupied for the whole window, which almost no depot achieves. Dynamic control never allocates less than a static cap, reclaims the headroom the rest of the time, and sees the 30–60 kW of lighting, compressors and HVAC that static caps cannot.

Question 3

Can smart charging itself cause a missed departure?

Accepted Answer

Yes, if it allocates equally rather than by deadline. A van plugging in at 02:30 for an 05:00 departure needs about 16 kW sustained; an equal share across twenty guns on a 300 kW site gives 15 kW. The fix is departure times in the charging layer, not more power.

Question 4

Is OCPP smart charging a standard or a vendor feature?

Accepted Answer

A standard: charging profiles are defined in the protocol itself, and OCPP 2.0.1 Edition 3 was accepted by the IEC as IEC 63584. Implementations vary, so name the version and profile support in the tender, not just "OCPP compliant".

load management

Electric Vehicle Smart Charging: Controlling Depot Power Without Missing Departures