On January 31, 2023, ChargePoint Holdings, an electric vehicle (EV) charging network company, and Stem, a utility- and industrial-scale battery storage and software company, announced an agreement to accelerate EV charging and battery storage for highway corridor DC fast charging and other EV charging applications like fleet charging.[1] According to the press release, by combining EV charging with battery storage and AI-driven energy management, EV site operators can benefit from lower operating costs and added energy resiliency.
ChargePoint will analyze EV charging demand at sites looking to install DC chargers and assess their eligibility for incentive programs like the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program. ChargePoint will work with Stem to determine if a battery energy storage system may reduce the EV site’s operating costs. The companies say they will integrate ChargePoint’s Express Plus advanced fast charging platform with Stem’s on-site energy storage and its Athena platform, which integrates solar, storage, and EV charging management. The agreement has the potential to help reduce an EV site host’s utility bills by reducing demand charges, which can represent a significant portion of EV charging operating costs.[2] EV site hosts can reduce or avoid these costs by utilizing battery storage to mitigate demand peaks. Through energy storage-managed EV charging, customers can protect themselves against the risk of potential utility rate changes.
[1] https://www.chargepoint.com/about/news/chargepoint-and-stem-accelerate-deployment-ev-charging-and-battery-storage-solutions-dc
[2] Currently, public charging utilization is often too low to recover the cost of high-demand charges. A 2017 Rocky Mountain Institute study showed demand charges could be responsible for over 90% of a charging station’s electricity costs. Similarly, a 2019 Great Plains Institute study found that at low utilization rates, demand charges can be responsible for up to 90% of a site host’s monthly electricity bills.