Copec Voltex Charges Electric Bus Fleets in Chile
Copec Voltex specializes in providing EV charging solutions for the greater public, private organizations, and fleets. EV fleet charging requires a high charger uptime, easy vehicle identification, and strong energy management. Amongst others, Copec Voltex uses Ampcontrol for electric shuttle buses transporting personnel to the largest copper mining site in the world.
Copec Voltex provides charging infrastructure for public and private transport fleets within South America. Ampcontrol and Copec Voltex have been collaborating on EV charging depots to provide high uptime and lower energy costs for fleets. Copec Voltex uses Ampcontrol to automatically identify vehicles, reduce CO2 emissions, increase the use of renewable energy, conduct pre-commissioning tests and evaluate hardware.
Ampcontrol and Copec Voltex successfully established connections and tested the DC charging stations in under 24 hours for each new site, with the chargers fully operational on the following day.
Copec Voltex’s customers can authorize vehicles. To achieve better tracking of charging sessions and improved troubleshooting, Ampcontrol’s software authorizes the charging session using a vehicle identifier (VID).
In Chile, customers benefit from charging during the daytime when the grid has a high amount of solar energy available. With Ampcontrol’s software, Copec Voltex can automatically shift charging to times with the highest percentage of renewable energy.
Challenges
Since Copec Voltex uses several brands for their EV fleet charging depots, the software had to fully comply with industry standards. Moreover, functionalities such as Autocharge had to work seamlessly with several bus OEMs. Before commissioning on the actual fleet depot, the software had to be tested separately on test locations or with lab chargers.
All the sites were already in full operation mode. Most chargers had several charging sessions per day and a software commission had to be done smoothly within a short time frame. A single interruption could cause problematic delays in public transportation or for the mining workers. Copec Voltex needed a professional and knowledgeable partner to keep their operations efficient and on-time.
Chile’s electricity market issues lower energy costs during certain times of the day due to the increasing amount of solar and wind energy, and the Chilean government’s incentivization of renewable projects. Copec Voltex needed a charging management software that can optimize charging based on energy prices and renewable energy.
Solution
Tracking vehicle utilization is critical to Copec’s success. To keep charging operations on track, Ampcontrol automatically identifies vehicles with predetermined unique identifiers. All charging data is linked to the vehicle so fleet operators can quickly troubleshoot and coordinate the depot to minimize downtime. Copec Voltex is also able to use Ampcontrol’s automatic vehicle identification on various sites and chargers to streamline their monitoring.
Copec Voltex utilizes Ampcontrol’s software to shift charging during high renewable availability in the grid automatically. With Ampcontrol’s charging management software, Copec Voltex can easily set on and off-peak periods throughout the day on one easy-to-use dashboard. This peak shaving is critical to meeting the fleet operator’s CO2 emission goals and reducing monthly fueling costs.
Ampcontrol performed various commissioning tests together with Copec Voltex’s operations team. The testing was successfully conducted without any interruptions to the existing day-to-day fleet operations. This ensured a high uptime of the charging infrastructure and high satisfaction for the fleet operators. The close and transparent collaboration between the teams at Copec Voltex, Ampcontrol, and the hardware OEMs proved key to the integration’s success.
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