Connected Charging Services for Electric Vehicles: A Stakeholder Analysis for Identifying Smart Charging Strategies in Distributed Energy Systems

Electromobility creates new challenges for the automotive industry that exceed the original equipment manufacturers’ (OEM) existing core expertise. As the automotive and the energy industry merge, intense collaboration is crucial for developing future products and vehicles that are relevant and beneficial for the consumer. By utilizing the electric vehicles’ (EV) load shifting potential, connected charging services (CCS) might be able to harmonize customer and industry needs. Charging infrastructure and information technology of existing EVs do not meet the corresponding requirements to the full extent. In addition a common industry standardization does not exist either. However, proprietary products are already being brought to market, e.g. for optimizing the energy consumption of private households through the use of single EVs. Grid scale applications that use fleets of EVs are not commercially available, yet. The goal is to maximize the EVs’ technical and economic contribution within distributed energy systems. Therefore, the interests of all stakeholders involved need to be considered despite being heavily dependent on the application.This paper identifies future charging strategies for EVs in distributed energy systems and derives an approach how they can be successfully brought to market. After presenting critical success factors, options for future strategic collaboration models are being discussed. At the center of this study lies a stakeholder analysis that is based on qualitative, semistructured interviews with experts from academia and industry.