Residential customers with a 100-amp service who are considering the purchase of an EV often trigger distribution service panel, wire, and transformer upgrades. The costs of these upgrades can amount to tens of thousands of dollars of extra out-of-pocket expenses and be a significant barrier to electrification and EV adoption.

Grid edge computing leveraging the smart meter and meter socket can unlock a wide array of customer and grid benefits. In particular, the combined deployment of grid edge computing capability and emerging EV charging applications can allow residential EV customers with 100-amp panels to avoid panel or service upgrades by coordinating their load to the home and the grid, thereby saving or deferring significant upgrade costs for customers and utilities.

The solution wirelessly connects a Level 2 residential EV charger to the smart meter. The smart meter runs an application that continuously measures load on the customer panel, service wire, and service transformer and posts associated limits to the charger when necessary. This structure avoids needing a service upgrade while enabling Level 2 EV charging services and maximizing the hosting capacity of low-voltage distribution infrastructure. 

In conjunction with its AMI solutions provider, PG&E currently is proceeding with plans to deploy a distributed intelligence (DI) head-end as a reusable platform for grid edge applications. Using this platform, PG&E is partnering with EV service equipment (EVSE) manufacturers to design, test, and deploy a limited number of DI-enabled smart meters and EVSE units at residential customer locations with 100-amp service to evaluate the solution and its potential to scale across the utility's wider customer base.

Session Sponsored by: Itron