Smart electric vehicle charging keeps getting smarter. Xeal Energy is a new-ish company in this sector, and one we just recently came across. It’s doing a few things I’m especially fond of, so I thought I’d give it a little love here on CleanTechnica.
The Basics
Let’s start with a few of the more common things Xeal offers. On the consumer side, via its app, Xeal helps you to find charging stations in the area or along your route. On the business side, it helps to select EV charging stations and get them installed.
Cool X-tra Features
On the consumer side, Xeal allows EV drivers to reserve a charging station — a cool feature that is surprisingly rare. It also provides live updates on battery percent, something I don’t recall seeing elsewhere. (Naturally, though, this is something I’d expect from the car’s app.)
Perhaps its most useful feature for property owners, Xeal says its platform “maximizes charging sessions at the lowest energy cost so every session is profitable.” The company indicates that up to 7× return on investment (ROI) is possible. However, that depends a great deal on your utility and electricity pricing programs.
“Xeal’s proprietary technology reduces energy costs by up to 70%, while avoiding costly panel upgrades,” the company adds.
Xeal Energy also provides a nifty little calculator on the “Apartments & Condos” section of its website. You enter the number of parking spaces in your lot, number of EV chargers, charging rate per hour (set by facility manager), and how many hours a week you expect a driver.
A couple of other notes Xeal adds on its website that seem noteworthy are that 49% of Fortune 500 companies now provide EV charging to their employees (some of their employees) and that “our smart-scheduling app serves 4x the amount of drivers than unmanaged systems.”
One more matter that Xeal dives is microgrids. With a graphic that looks very similar to the Tesla solar–storage–charger/car app, Xeal claims that it “makes microgrids work with EV chargers.”
“Model your next project with UtilityAPI or generate a sample load profile based on the type of facility you’re working with,” the company adds. “Size your solar array right for maximum on-site consumption with chargers and improve the payback period. Download a new load profile with a facility plus EV forecast to better optimize your energy storage assets.
“Estimate utilization of chargers, project costs, and revenue potential with smart insights delivered by us to calculate the ROI on your EV charger project.”
Overall, Xeal is offering a fairly comprehensive smart charging package. If I managed an apartment complex or workplace, it would surely be on my shortlist as a potential EV charging partner. What do you think?
