IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2021 - 26

each time a driver plugged in a vehicle. The average
charging frequency was between three and four
times a week while the state of charge was entered,
on average, only once every two weeks.
* The trial 2 survey asked participants about why they
had/had not used the app.
- The reasons given for using were " to participate
in the trial " (60%), " to monitor the cost of charging "
(45%), and " planning journeys " (7%).
- The reasons given for not using the app were
" did not see the benefits of using the app " (59%),
" hadn't had time " (26%), and " technical issues "
(15%).
✔ GreenFlux:
* A total of 69% of the participants had downloaded
the app, and 61% of the participants made at least
one high-priority request.
* During trial 2, 4% of the charging events had an associated
high-priority request. A larger proportion
of charging events included a high-priority request
early in trial 2. This stabilized to 2.5% of the charging
events during the latter parts of the trial.
* Approximately 20% of the participants were responsible
for 90% of the high-priority requests.
table 6. The CrowdCharge
data entry frequencies for trial 2.
Data Type
Regular journey
One-off journey
State of charge
Percentage of App
Account Holders
Who Provided This
Data at Least Once
41
25
57
Average Data
Entry Frequency
(Entries Per
Week)
0.16
0.07
0.47
The feature was used regularly by a small group
of participants and very infrequently by the
majority. There was no link between the use of
the high-priority feature and the concern participants
had expressed about demand management
or the amount of management they had
experienced.
* The trial 2 survey asked participants about why they
had/had not used the app.
- The reasons given for using the app were " because
of journey requirements " (58%), " trying the app
out " (30%), and " did not want to wait to charge
their car " (5%).
- The reasons given for not using the were " would
not make a difference to their charging regime "
(43%), " technical issue/an issue with the invite
to use the app " (27%), and " no access to a smartphone "
(8%).
Could Smart Charging Become
Commonplace in the Future?
The results of project Electric Nation prove the ability of
smart charging to harness the flexibility available from EV
charging in the context of a trial. Figure 6 shows that substantial
flexibility is available, and this aligns well with periods
when electricity demand is typically the highest. The
results of the participant surveys indicate whether similar
systems would be adopted by the trial participants permanently
or recommended to their friends and family.
Figure 10 presents how likely trial participants were to
adopt each trial solution.
✔ The CrowdCharge participants favored either the simplicity
of trial 1 or the rewards associated with trial
3. Trials 2 and 3 required the same level of engagement
from participants, who were much more likely to
adopt trial 3 (with a financial reward) than trial 2 (53%
high likely versus 21%).
21%
55%
26%
31%
33% 53%
12%
CrowdCharge
21%
26%
31%
41%
24%
16%
8%
Trial 1Trial 2Trial 3Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3
GreenFlux
1-4
5-7
8-10
figure 10. The likelihood of the users adopting each trial
solution (10 = " Highly Likely " ).
26
ieee power & energy magazine
53%
29%
45%
76%
✔ The GreenFlux participants strongly favored trial 3,
where the app allowed them to control their charging to
maximize the reward they could earn. The trial 3 survey
showed that participants found the app easy to use
(88% stated it was either " easy " or " very easy " to use).
Word of mouth can be an important factor in the adoption
of new technologies. The participants were also asked how
likely they would be to recommend each solution to their
friends (see Figure 11).
Again, the GreenFlux participants strongly favored
trial 3. This also supports findings from the trial 3 survey
where 81% of respondents said that such a system would
encourage " most " or " many " people to charge at different
times. The CrowdCharge respondents were also likely to recommend
the trial 1 solution.
The use of smart charging alongside ToU tariffs is
already being deployed to harness the flexibility available
in EV charging. The Ohme smart charging cable can
july/august 2021
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2021

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