A few days ago, our Chief Editor, Ramesh Somani, came with a quote – Future is Electric. Yes, it is. As if Ramesh Somani has some sort of telepathy with one of the largest think tanks of this country – NITI Aayog. Why? Check out their website, and you will know why. Recently NITI Aayog has come up with their new handbook on Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure. Now, terracotta environmentalists can differ from me that EV policy is not going to help. The 6th IPCC Report also showcases that human effort towards a better future in terms of climate change is not helping a lot. But, EVs can turn around things and reduce the penetration of pollutants in your vicinity. Let’s know what this handbook is all about from this Exhibit blog.
Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE)
If you don’t know what terminology I have just thrown towards you, let me make you understand it easily. Well, this EVSE is nothing but the core component of charging infrastructure. It’s like finding a charging station for your EV, like when you seek electric sockets to charge your smartphones. However, an EVSE has more niche than your smartphone charging point. It is because your EVSE is a public point and will not be present at your home. Hence, you must add more functionality, including user authorization, authentication process for charging, privacy, security, information storage, and network management for better regulations.
Segmentation based on Battery Capacity
Trust me; it’s an important section. Wherever you go to fill the tanks of your car in a pumping station, you get several choices – petrol, diesel, power, CNG, etc. A similar sort of consideration should come in the charging infrastructure prospect of an EV. Why? Now, your two-wheeler EV will not have the same battery capacity that your four-wheeler will hold. Even when the Government of India will think about EV trucks, situations will become more different. So, if anyone thinks to install a charging infrastructure on any land, one must also ponder battery capacity segmentation.
Battery Charging or Battery Swapping
EV battery charging methods will have different methods, consisting of AC or DC. Apart from this, the charging infrastructure must have a battery swapping facility if the lifespan of a battery finishes. But, it can be in a normal car repairing centre. No, it should not be there. You will like to know the reason for sure. See, many of these repairing centres will have the capital to go for such battery replacement. But batteries are a bit costly, and it won’t be possible for small repair centres. Thinking about the population of this country who will purchase EVs after the Vehicle Scrappage Policy, the demands for batteries will increase for sure. To meet such needs, charging infrastructure must add such facilities there.
Final Remarks & Lacunae in Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure
The Exhibit team has discussed hardly anything in the handbook that NITI Aayog has brought. So, I will get more editions for you by examining every aspect of this so-called future document, just like we did yesterday for these articles. However, before we wrap, this document can add some more facilities. Governments must think about installing computer vision cameras that can track the vehicle number of your car and integrate the same with the VAHAN portal to know its car details and accordingly give directions to a particular place where they can charge their batteries (due to different battery capacities). It is an age of automation, and charging infrastructure should have such arrangements. It will surely avoid a fuss even in an electric vehicle charging infrastructure. You can use ev charge calculator to get a rough estimate of cost