As the global transition to electric vehicles accelerates, the infrastructure supporting this clean energy revolution faces unprecedented demands. Businesses of all sizes, from bustling grocery stores to local convenience shops, are increasingly looking to offer EV charging solutions, but often grapple with concerns about grid strain, escalating electricity costs, and energy reliability. The traditional grid, while foundational, is not always equipped to handle the sudden, high power draws of fast EV chargers, leading to potential peak demand charges and interconnection delays that hinder progress.
Enter the microgrid: a powerful, localized energy system emerging as a game-changer for commercial EV charging infrastructure. Microgrids offer businesses a path to greater energy independence, cost predictability, and enhanced sustainability. To illuminate the transformative potential of these systems, EV Charging Magazine posed a series of questions to Michael Stadler, CTO and co-founder of Xendee, a leading innovator in microgrid design and operation software. In this exclusive Q&A, Michael unpacks the complexities and benefits of integrating microgrids with electric vehicle charging at commercial sites, offering critical insights for businesses navigating this evolving landscape.
Introduction to Microgrids for Commercial EV Charging:
1. Michael, could you first define what a microgrid entails in the context of a commercial facility (like a grocery store, restaurant, or convenience store) looking to add EV charging? What are the core components typically involved?
A microgrid in this context is an on-site power generation system that can operate independently or in conjunction with the main utility grid. It’s designed to enhance energy reliability, reduce costs, and support sustainability goals while handling the increased power demands from the EV charging infrastructure. In general, microgrids are important for not only electricity generation, but also heating and cooling. Therefore, combined heat and power (CHP) can play a big role in microgrids.
Core components, in addition to a grid connection, typically include renewable DERs such as PV, energy storage, EV chargers, and possibly other DERs like natural gas generators. The microgrid must also be controlled, which can be a mix of a hardware controller and software to enable the controller to re-optimize the control strategy in real-time based on electricity demand, prices, and generation capacity.
2. The increasing demand for EV charging is putting a strain on the grid and raising electricity costs for businesses. How do microgrids uniquely address these challenges, particularly in terms of managing peak demand charges?
EV chargers — especially Level 3 (DC Fast Chargers) — can draw tens or even hundreds of kilowatts in short bursts. When this occurs during peak hours, it can spike the business’s demand charges, push the business into a higher rate class with the utility, and in some cases the utility may not be able to meet the demand for power. Microgrids provide local control over energy use, generation, and storage. Battery systems are especially effective for reducing peak demand charges by discharging during high-load periods, such as when EVs are charging. Solar or other on-site generation can directly power chargers during the day, while control systems can shift or delay charging to avoid peak utility rates. The microgrid controller optimizes these resources in real time, ensuring efficient and cost-effective operation.
Deployment & Integration:
3. What are the key “ins and outs” or practical considerations businesses need to be aware of when deploying a microgrid that integrates solar, batteries, and EV charging components? Are there common misconceptions or hurdles you frequently encounter?
Microgrids can be very helpful in managing costs, but they also can be complex and need sophisticated planning to achieve the business goals of the project. Frequent challenges we see are that the clients/developers jump too quickly into the development phase of a microgrid without adequately analyzing or running multiple business cases and technology scenarios for multiple years, locking them into sub-optimal solutions which cannot easily be upgraded with new technologies. This leads to lost opportunities in revenue and painful modifications to the microgrid down the road.
4. How do Xendee’s solutions streamline modeling and operating processes for EV charging solutions by leveraging DERs?
Xendee’s DESIGN algorithm provides a way to design an optimal EV charging solution for the particular load and other variables such as utility rates, suitability for solar PV, and financial incentives or constraints. You can also factor for objectives such as charging-as-a-service. Then once installed, real-time operation can be based on the same algorithm to ensure operational results closely match projections during the design phase. Xendee allows for this type of optimization both at the beginning and over the multi-year life of the microgrid as different needs, demands, and business cases evolve over time.
5. From Xendee’s perspective, what is the ideal mix of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) – such as solar, battery storage, and potentially backup generators – for optimizing EV charging at a commercial site?
Depending on the business objectives, location, utility constraints, electricity rates, availability of natural gas, and tax incentives, every EV charging microgrid project can and will be distinct, creating a need for a replicable and streamlined design and implementation process that enables you to configure optimized solutions unique to the business case.
Benefits Beyond EV Charging:
6. Beyond providing power for EV charging and reducing electricity costs, what are the other significant benefits a microgrid offers to commercial facilities? (e.g., fixed electricity prices, resilience during outages, sustainability branding).
Microgrids improve the total system efficiency by bringing generation and demand resources closer to each other, reducing the need for infrastructure upgrades and at the same time, speeding up interconnection with the utility. Furthermore, in a microgrid, all generation, storage, and load resources act as one unified entity, allowing for more integration of volatile renewable energy without burdening the utility grid further. Finally, microgrids improve resiliency against grid outages and are a hedge against future energy price increases.
7. Could you share a success story or a notable project where Xendee has implemented a microgrid solution for a commercial client, specifically highlighting its impact on EV charging capabilities and overall facility energy management?
Xendee equipped SolarEdge with its platform to replace diesel trucks with EVs for a European retailer by expanding on-site solar and battery storage to enable powerful charging capabilities. Given the trucks’ tight dispatch schedule, the retailer needed to limit charging time to one to two hours per stop, necessitating a two-fold increase in capacity from current capabilities, so SolarEdge was tasked with exploring options to expand the solar array installation and add battery energy storage systems. Xendee’s software modeled a way to avoid expanding the grid connection and reduce fees, while accounting for significantly increased site demand by adding more solar and a high power battery, leading to faster ROI, more operational expense savings, and improved internal rate of return (IRR) and net present value (NPV).
Market Trends & Future Outlook:
8. What trends are you observing in the commercial and industrial (C&I) sector regarding the adoption of microgrids for EV charging? Are certain types of businesses or geographies leading the way?
Like with the growing demand in the data center industry, the growing demand for EV fast-charging is pushing the aged utility system to its limits. At the same time, renewable energy projects and EV fast-charging projects are delayed due to the long interconnection processes and utility system upgrade timelines of up to 10 years. Therefore, we have seen that every single Xendee client operating in the EV charging space is considering and implementing microgrids as a solution to the problem.
9. As the grid continues to evolve and EV adoption accelerates, how do you see the role of microgrids expanding or changing in the next 5-10 years, particularly in supporting widespread public and fleet EV charging?
We see strong indicators that the adoption of microgrids is accelerating across several industries. We did a recent Commercial EV Charging survey and 78% of the participants believed that microgrids are the top “game-changing technology for stimulating the transition to commercial EVs and EV fleets.” (See attached 2024 survey)
10. What advice would you give to a business owner or facility manager who is considering adding EV charging but is concerned about the associated energy costs and grid impact?
Leverage the benefits and control afforded by microgrids. EV charging is a perfect use case for microgrids that can scale up or down based on the project’s needs.
Michael Stadler’s profound insights underscore that microgrids are no longer a niche concept but a vital component for the scalable and sustainable expansion of EV charging infrastructure. For commercial facilities grappling with grid limitations, rising energy costs, and the critical need for reliability, microgrids offer a compelling solution. They empower businesses to mitigate peak demand charges, enhance operational resilience during outages, and significantly boost their sustainability credentials, all while ensuring consistent and cost-effective electric vehicle charging.
The success story of SolarEdge’s partnership with Xendee vividly demonstrates the tangible benefits, from avoiding costly grid upgrades to achieving faster ROI. As the market trends clearly indicate, microgrids are increasingly recognized as the “game-changing technology” that will fuel the widespread adoption of commercial EVs and EV fleets. For any business owner or facility manager considering the leap into EV charging, the message is clear: embracing microgrids provides the control, flexibility, and financial foresight needed to thrive in the accelerating world of electric mobility. Explore how integrated energy solutions can future-proof your business and drive the clean energy transition forward.
