ChargePoint, providing solutions for electric vehicle charging, has announced company investments in its Network Operations Center with an aim to deliver charging station reliability, by combining information security technology with natural language processing, enhanced driver communications and training certifications.
The NOC, which went live late in July of 2023, will implement 24/7 station monitoring, predictive analytics and machine learning to more rapidly detect station downtime, in turn improving charger uptime and ensuring faster incident response, according to a press release.
Its machine learning and Natural Language Processing capabilities will automatically process big data feeds, and social media mentions, to pinpoint individual charging stations with issues, with a goal that charging station hardware issues can be diagnosed remotely and remediated quickly. This, combined with the integration of predictive analytics, will make it possible to resolve certain issues before a charging station owner even notices an issue.
While uptime is a key measure of charging reliability, the EV charging industry has not yet adopted a standard measurement for uptime. ChargePoint generally measures station uptime as the portion of time each individual charging port can dispense energy, as a driver pulling in for a charge would expect, not averaged across a bank of charging stations at a single address. ChargePoint delivers approximately 96% uptime on average across its entire public network in North America and Europe, and for ChargePoint Assure customers, ChargePoint provides a 98% annual station uptime guarantee, the company said.
“Accessible, reliable EV charging plays a critical role in the ongoing shift to electric mobility, and our Network Operations Center is prepared to ensure reliability at scale in support of EV adoption.” said Rick Wilmer, Chief Operating Officer at ChargePoint. “We believe that our methodology of calculating uptime is the most transparent in the industry, and the most relevant to drivers which provides us with the necessary benchmark to build upon. We are improving the charging experience across the entire ecosystem – network, installer, site host, and app user – to ensure every driver who needs a charge has the best possible charging experience.”
The ChargePoint network, which has more than 243,000 active charging ports plus roaming partners, said it will also implement a comprehensive training program to certify electrical contractors that install EV charging infrastructure. The company expects its training and certification programs to go live early in 2024.
