San Francisco-based Sunverge Energy, provider of a platform for virtual power plants (VPP), and Eaton, an intelligent power management company, announced on March 29 a collaboration to enable dynamic utility management of home electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure.

Combining the Sunverge platform, a grid-aware power source built from distributed energy resources (DERs), with Eaton’s EV charging solutions enables connected utilities to advance flexible load management and orchestrate, aggregate and value stack grid services to support the grid and decarbonize.

“Eaton’s powerful EV charging and smart breaker technologies provide a platform for utilities to manage and harvest real-time load flexibility behind the meter,” said Martin Milani, CEO of Sunverge. “With the rapid increase in electric vehicles, utilities now clearly see the opportunity to better manage EV charging and leverage EVs for much-needed grid services.”

In August 2021, President Biden outlined a targeted 50% EV sales share by 2030 as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Based on that goal, McKinsey & Co. analysts estimated that the number of EV’s in the country would go from less than three million in 2022 to more than 48 million in 2030. Additionally, they estimated the U.S. would require 1.2 million public EV chargers and 28 million private EV chargers by 2030.

With the vast majority of EV charging taking place in private homes, utilities companies require new tools to ensure the grid is balanced and provide the support necessary to reach clean energy goals. By leveraging home charging infrastructure and virtual power plants through DER systems such as Sunverge’s, utilities can manage energy demand in real time to more efficiently and economically control two-way energy flow.

“Smart charging helps utilities and homeowners alike by optimizing the use of onsite renewables, enabling peak demand shaving and charging EV batteries when rates are lowest,” said Paul Ryan, director of connected solutions and EV charging at Eaton.