Select your location to see tailored content for your region

North America

Load balancing

What is load balancing?

Load balancing prevents overcapacity by distributing the available capacity equally over all charging ports at a given location.

Load balancing technology

Load balancing prevents overcapacity by distributing the available capacity equally over all charging ports at a given location. This makes it an important smart charging feature for anyone that operates multiple charging ports at a location with limited power capacity.

How does load balancing work?

Operating a charging station requires a power source (e.g. office building) to carry the cumulative sum of the total capacity of these charging stations. Load balancing distributes the available capacity proportionally over all active charging stations. In doing so, optimal charging is provided to all electric vehicles at your location, within the limits of your charging stations’ capacity.

Sample scenario:

A parking facility (power source) has a maximum of 30 kW available with five charging ports available. Four electric cars start to charge at 7.4 kW using the full capacity of power available. When a fifth car joins, there is not enough power to charge all five cars at 7.4 kW. This is where load balancing comes in and distributes the power equally so each car starts charging at 6 kW.

What is priority load balancing?

Priority load balancing distributes the available power capacity in a more flexible way to traditional load balancing. Rather than equally distributing power between multiple charging stations, power is distributed on a priority basis.

Sample scenario:

A parking facility (power source) has a maximum of 30 kW available with five charging ports available. Four electric cars start to charge at 7.4 kW using the full capacity of power available. If a fifth car joins and needs to charge at a minimum of 7.4 kW, the facility would require 37 kW of power, but we only have a 30 kW availability.

This is where priory load balancing comes into play. The charging status of each car is evaluated and it is identified that the second car has consumed the most power. Now the second car would be queued to allow the fifth car to start charging. Once every few minutes, the charging status of each car is evaluated again. This time, the first car is fully charged, so the second car is released from the queue and allowed to charge again.

If you would like to read more about dynamic load balancing, then head on over to our blog which covers the subject in more detail here.

Still have questions?

Find the answers to the most frequently asked questions about electric driving and charging.

What is smart charging?

Smart charging is a common term that refers to various useful functions of a charging station.

Read more

What are the incentives for buying an electric car?

In recent years, both the UK and Ireland have implemented incentives to make it more favourable to buy and own electric cars.

Read more

Can I automatically reimburse employee charging costs?

By signing up to our charging management software, employers can automate the reimbursement of charging costs for their employees.

Read more