DejaBlue, a leading provider of intelligent electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure for commercial sites, has announced the launch of DejaSense. This new offering is a plug-and-play optimization module that automatically aligns EV charging with on-site solar energy production, promising significant savings for businesses.
The innovative system helps companies drastically reduce energy costs while simultaneously maximizing their use of self-produced, renewable electricity. Sites using the technology can easily see a 20-30 percent increase in self-consumption of solar energy, translating to measurable monthly savings. For a typical small-to-medium enterprise (SME) charging 10 vehicles daily, this could represent over €600 in avoided energy costs each month. Potential savings for larger corporate or campus sites measure thousands of euros monthly.
AI Engine Coordinates Charging to Solar Peaks
DejaSense integrates seamlessly with all existing solar installations and any OCPP-compliant chargers. Installed near a site’s electrical panel, the system continuously measures both solar production and total site consumption. A proprietary AI engine then takes control, intelligently coordinating charging across all EV stations to shift power demand to coincide with peak solar production, which typically occurs around midday.
This smart optimization is critical in multi-day or daytime charging scenarios—such as those found in university campuses, corporate offices, or airport parking lots—where vehicles often remain parked for many hours longer than necessary to achieve a full charge. The module optimizes the charge rate to coincide with solar peaks, preventing the immediate pull of electricity from the public grid early in the morning. This maximizes the use of on-site solar power while still guaranteeing that every vehicle receives a full charge before departure.
Client Case Study Confirms Major Savings
Site managers maintain easy control over charging operations, while users can select from two settings: Eco, which optimizes for solar utilization while meeting the communicated charging time, or Priority, which initiates immediate charging regardless of available solar energy. The system efficiently switches to the public grid during overcast conditions to ensure an uninterrupted power supply.
Comepa, a leading expert in technological innovation, was one of the first clients to test the new offering. Utilizing 10 charging stations coupled with a 120 kWp solar panel, the company successfully reduced its dependence on the public grid by 30% and increased its consumption of on-site derived solar energy by a substantial 23%.
The module retails starting at 880 Euros plus the cost of site-specific sensors. Due to the significant reduction in electricity costs, most sites can expect a rapid and full return on investment (ROI) within just three to six months.
Executive Insight: Q&A with Parker Spielman, CEO and Co-founder of DejaBlue
To provide further context on the strategic benefits, technology, and market vision behind the launch of DejaSense, we spoke with Parker Spielman, CEO and Co-founder of DejaBlue.
1. Beyond the cost savings, what is the most significant operational or strategic benefit a business gains from using DejaSense to optimize solar energy for EV charging?
Cost savings is the big driver. Aligning EV charging with on-site solar also helps organizations demonstrate tangible progress toward sustainability goals.
The other main benefit is the user experience. Everything about this product is designed to be simple and clear, from the installation to the charging experience. In an industry plagued with unreliability, we tried to just make things work seamlessly and reliably.
2. Your company’s data indicates a significant increase in a site’s solar self-consumption. Could you explain how the AI engine achieves this without compromising the charge time for a vehicle?
Our system incorporate the realtime site data, including solar production, building consumption, and the ongoing charges, and combines that data with our forecasts for solar and additional vehicles arriving. With those input sources, our algorithm determines when to charge and at what rate. Keep in mind that long duration charging is AC; consequently for most sites we do not know the battery levels of each vehicle, so we are also estimating that based upon what we know about the users and site’s historical patterns.
We combine all of this to balance squeezing out that last drop of sunshine without overly delaying the charge.
3. What was the strategic purpose of creating the “Eco” and “Priority” modes, and what has user feedback revealed about their real-world use?
From a user interface perspective, the big challenge with solar optimization is how to set and update the user expectations. Weather can change, more vehicles may show up than our forecasts estimated, so we need to be thoughtful about ensuring clear communication with the user.
At the same time, a user’s needs may change. Some users may need there vehicle charged immediately, or some may opt-in for solar optimization and later have a change in plans. What was really important to ensure a successful launch was ensuring that at any point, the user has options. This creates a much smoother experience where the user can opt-out to have their vehicle charge immediately than requiring them to end the charge and restart in a different mode.
The other motivation for having to modes is around reference framing. For sites where there is paid charging and a discount for opting into charge with solar, the pricing set can help steer behavior towards a mutually incentivized option.
What we have seen from the user data is that at all types of sites with solar (public, private, paid, hybrid), there is no homogenous solution, we see sessions that fall into all three categories (charging with solar, later opt-ing out, charging immediately). We also see the behavior vary for the same user on different days. This continues to support our focus to ensure we clearly set expectations at every step and always provide the user with options should their requirements change.
4. What specific gap in the market did DejaBlue identify that existing solutions weren’t addressing, and how does DejaSense fill that need?
We’re moving toward a future where EVs will make up a much larger share of a site’s electricity use, whether that’s a workplace, university, hospital, or fleet depot. There currently are not many commercially available charging offerings that help reduce the cost of electricity. We strove to fill that gap by providing a solution to optimize across energy resources that is easy to implement, easy for users to understand, and compatible with nearly all solar and charging installations.
We started with solar, since regulations are pushing solar shade structures and rooftop solar in the same sites that have long duration charging during the day. It also gave us the opportunity to focus on nailing the delayed charging experience.
Our next step is to extend this approach to energy retail + managed charging, where flexible EV load can be shifted to times when the grid is both cheaper and cleaner.
5. Given the quick return on investment, what are the key factors that determine how quickly a site can recoup the cost of the DejaSense kit?
The payback period is mainly influenced by three things: the size of the solar system and how much excess energy it produces, the number of EVs charged on-site, and the local gap between grid prices and solar value. Savings come from shifting charging into the hours when solar output is high. Using France as an example, sites are now seeing 5–10 cents saved (depending on the contract) per kWh shifted from grid import to solar. A typical commercial charging session is about 20 kWh (often higher early in the week); a site with a dozen chargers used 20 times per week could save $250–500 per month on electricity.
6. Could you elaborate on DejaBlue’s business model for DejaSense? Is it structured as a one-time purchase, or is there a subscription or recurring service component?
The DejaSense module is purchased as a piece of hardware, just like a charger. Since there’s only one device required and no civil engineering or electrical work, it’s extremely cheap to equip. Then DejaBlue simply operates the chargers with a standard industry service contract and optimizes them with the solar energy produced on site. Our recurring revenue is from the charger operation, and for a site owner, this could pay for itself with the energy savings.
7. Can you provide more detail on the ‘plug-and-play’ installation process for DejaSense and what it means for site managers in terms of required expertise?
Many of our teammates have prior experience in consumer applications, and given the market frustrations we see around setting up EV chargers, we tried to do something different here.
The traditional way of measuring electricity involves installing a meter inside the panel, wiring through modbus, and setting up a datalogger. That’s serious electrical work, dependent on panel availability, the technician’s skill, and often requires a full power cut. Instead, we use CT clamps (or in some cases Rogowski coils) that simply clip around the wires to measure current. Once they’re attached and the module is powered on, everything else happens automatically. This makes the setup compatible with virtually any site and simple enough for any electrician to handle quickly.
8. Looking ahead, what are the key trends you predict will shape the commercial EV charging and clean energy sectors in the next 3-5 years?
Today, energy is still managed in silos. EV charging, solar, and batteries are treated separately, and the people responsible for electrifying fleets are usually not the same ones negotiating energy contracts. Over the next 3–5 years, as EV adoption reaches early mass-market scale and electricity replaces fuel as a major line item, I expect businesses to start treating energy as a single, optimizable resource. Unlike petrol, electricity can be shifted, stored, and sourced more intelligently.
We’re going to see a much more educated purchaser who is buying holistic solutions from “energy companies” who deliver combined infrastructure, optimization and energy contracts.
