Simplified view to the maze of India’s EV charging standards
The government of India has been actively catalyzing faster adoption of electric vehicles, with a mission to cut down 35% carbon emission intensity by 2030. However, the penetration of EV & charging infrastructure has been still at a much slower rate!
Among many, one of the key reasons for the sloppy growth of EV infrastructure was the unclarity around EV charging standards, electrical connectors, and communication protocols between EVs, Charging stations and Management platforms.
Over the last 3 years, the standardization of Indian charging infrastructure has finally got a bit of shape ; however it may still look like a puzzle for many of us when reading for the first time. This post aims at bringing some clarity on the evolution of EV charging standards within India.A few notes to start with:
Private charging mostly refers to individual homes where the station is directly connected to home’s KWh meter and the electricity consumption is billed as any other home electrical appliances like refrigerator or air conditioner. Anything other than this configuration (where separate meter, billing involved) is referred as public charging station.
2. Battery swapping Vs Plug-in charging: Though many have doubts on the scalability of ‘battery-swap’ technology, it is going to stay for the next few more years, mainly because of the India’s large 2 wheelers (e-Bikes, e-Scooters), 3 wheelers (e-Auto Rickshaws) and a few low end 4 wheelers markets.
There are no clear regulations for the battery-swapping infrastructure yet. This article covers only the plug-in EV charging infrastructure standardization.
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BHARAT EV CHARGER SPECIFICATIONS (21 NOV 2017)
The government of India finalized charging infrastructure protocols for different combination of voltage and speed of charging and published this standardization document on 21st Nov 2017 – by naming it as Bharat EV charger specifications.
💡 You may download the official specification of Bharat EV charging here
The specification mainly focused on AC & DC public charging infrastructure and gave only a brief recommendation for private/ home charging solutions. In fact, till today there is no clear regulation for home charging.
Below is the quick summary of Bharat EV charger specifications
1. Private / Home Charging:
• Input: 230V/15A single phase plug (the same plug that’s being used for heavy home appliances such as air-conditioners)• Output: delivers up to 2.5 kW
• The amount of electricity consumed is added to home-metering. So, there is no need to measure the KWh energy delivered to the electric vehicle.
• As of now, there is no special policy or standard defined for at-home EV charging. However, Bharat EV specifications recommend the installation of a 30 mA RCD (Residual Current Circuit Breaker) to ensure safety and using an IEC 60309 Industrial connectors on both the ends.
2. Public Charging:
Public charger refers to anything outside the home premises: the electricity needs to be billed and payment needs to be collected. The document covers both AC & DC charging solutions.1.1 Bharat EV Charger AC001 (Low power AC Charging)
This specification, often abbreviated as BEVC-AC001 covers Public metered AC outlet (PMAO) which is to provide AC input to the vehicle which has an on-board chargers. This document applies to electric road vehicles for charging at 230V standard single phase AC supply with a maximum output of 15A and at a maximum output power of 3.3 kW. PMAO is a slow charger for low-power vehicles.Below picture may give a brief idea on the key features of a typical Bharat EV Charger AC001.
1.2 Bharat EV Charger DC001 (Low power DC Charging)
Bharat EV DC Charger (BEVC-DC001 prescribes the definition, requirements and specifications for low voltage DC electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in India. , for conductive connection to the vehicle, with an AC input voltage of 3-phase, 415 V. It also specifies the requirements for digital communication between DC EV charging station and electric vehicle for control of DC charging.Below picture may give a brief idea on the key features of a typical Bharat EV Charger AC001.
CHARGING FOR HIGH VOLTAGE EVs (AMENDMENT ON AUG 2018)
The initial Bharat EV charger specifications (2017) were made with an assumption that the electric vehicles in India are likely to have small on-board chargers, not exceeding 2.5 kW or 3.3 kW.However, the entry of high range vehicles such as Hyundai Kona, MG Motors ZS EV Electric SUV and many upcoming 4 wheeler electric vehicles - featuring a minimum of 7.2 kW on-board chargers, and CCS (AC+DC combined charging system) / CHAdeMO faster charging AC & DC standards, created a need to support faster AC charging (Type 2) and rapid DC charging (via CCS / CHAdeMO connectors).
Thus, on August 2018, the Indian ministry of power published an amendment to the existing charging infrastructure standards.
FURTHER CLARITY ON SETTING-UP PUBLIC CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE (AMENDMENT ON OCT 2019)
On 1st October 2019, the Ministry of Power released another amendment with an revised guidelines and standards for EV charging infrastructures in India – by taking feedback and suggestions from different stakeholders of Indian electric vehicles market – start from EV manufactures, public charge point operators, and e-Mobility related service providers.This clarified many confusions on the installation, accreditation/approval set-ups of public charging stations, appointment of a Central Nodal Agency body, Charge point operators’ flexibility of choose the number and models of chargers installations, tariff planning,…etc.
💡 You may download the official amendment document from here
Below screenshot from the report may give an overview of different charging solutions infrastructure.
P.S: It is strange that the standardization mentions minimum of 22 kW capacity for Type-2 EV public charging. As of today (as well in the future) no electric vehicle is going to feature > 22 kW on-board charger. As far as I know, Tesla Model-X, Daimler Smart & Renault Zoe are the only three cars in the world which feature 22 kW on-board charger; a big percentage of EVs have only 7.4 kW AC on-board charger and some long range battery electric vehicles support 11 kW AC charging.
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