Demand Response

Demand Response allows you to control the power limit on each charging port individually. Demand Response can be used to shed load (reduce power) via one of two methods:

• Use Absolute Maximum Output Per Port to specify a port’s power limit in kW. An absolute limit sets the port’s power to the number you specify, regardless of the power flowing through the port at the time the limit is set. As an example, by setting a port’s absolute limit to 3.3 kW, the port will allow an already-connected vehicle to draw up to 3.3 kW (reducing the power if necessary), and likewise will allow the next vehicle that plugs in to draw up to 3.3 kW. Most customers use an absolute limit.

• Use Relative Percent of Present Load to reduce the power to a percentage of the power that is currently being measured at the port. As an example, if a port is currently delivering 7.2 kW to a vehicle, by setting the port’s relative limit to 25%, the port will reduce the power to 1.8 kW (25% of 7.2kW). That same limit (1.8 kW) will also apply to the next vehicle that plugs in.

  Because any percent of 0 kW is still 0 kW, a relative limit applied to a port that is not currently charging a vehicle will prevent any power from flowing through that port until the relative limit is removed.

Demand response can be used to set a per-port limit for one individual port, or to set the same per- port limit for all of the stations in a group (for example, to set every port in a group to a limit of 3.3kW). Please note that using demand response to set a per-port limit for all the stations in a group is different than setting one limit for a group of stations in aggregate — to do the latter, use the Power Sharing feature.

For setting aggregate power limits at the station group level, use Power Sharing. As a general guideline, use power sharing unless you have a need to control the power of each individual port.