This section looks at the crucial issue of ensuring that electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) is well serviced and maintained. EVSE refers to the dedicated electrical hardware required to recharge the battery on an electric vehicle. Starting from the initial chargepoint connection to the site power supply and leading right through to the final connector plugged into the electric vehicle.
While one aspect of building public confidence in adopting electric vehicles is to ensure that chargepoints are suitably located, this must go hand in hand with the chargepoints being relied upon to function.
Reasons that a chargepoint may come offline can be grouped into two main categories. One is due to resilience issues with the local power network supplying the site. This could occur due to a severe storm leading to a power outage in the surrounding area. This would be expected to be a rare occurrence and responsibility for restoring the power would not lie with the chargepoint operator or their contracted supplier but instead with the DNO.
This section focuses on the second category, which is due to faults arising with the EVSE itself. In this case, responsibility for rectifying any operational issues promptly and maintaining an acceptable uptime would lie with the chargepoint operator or their contracted supplier. It considers some of the challenges experienced by chargepoint hosts in terms of service reliability, and highlights some key points to think about when planning EVSE installations. Two best-practice case studies are also presented.
