ev.energy

React Native App

4.5

The brief:

ev.energy is a managed charging platform, empowering EV drivers to charge their cars with greener and cheaper electricity. The ev.energy platform uses an algorithm to enable drivers to charge when:

electricity is at its cheapest - off-peak & 'intelligent' rates are more and more common, and drivers can save large amounts of money making use of these
electricity is at a low carbon-intensity - the environmental impact of EVs can be worsened by using fossil fuels to charge, so it is important for drivers to know the best time to charge, to make the most of renewable generation
grid-intensity is not at risk of overwhelming infrastructure - as more EVs enter the market, infrastructure is not being updated quickly enough, so balancing load is an important consideration

ev.energy interacts with EV drivers through a mixture of hardware and software. Cars with built in telematics (such as Tesla) can interface directly with the ev.energy platform, and chargers with OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol) support can be controlled directly by the platform. Rather than drivers needing to directly operate the charger or enter their car to start charging, they can use the ev.energy mobile app (iOS and Android) to set up their charging schedule.

ev.energy also works with utility companies to offer managed charging programs, where customers of a utility can hand over some control of their car charging in return for incentives (such as cheaper electric rates, rebates, or reward points). This incentivises drivers to charge making best use of renewables, and reducing grid intensity - whilst benefiting utility companies who can better balance grid load via a virtual power-plant.

Whilst ev.energy already had a mobile app, they were looking to add further car charger integrations that required the app to directly communicate with the charger via Wi-Fi to provision it to the platform. One car charger integration was aimed to make access to EV charging more equitable, removing the need for more expensive charging units. Due to resource constraints, they needed to bring in an experienced mobile consultancy to rapidly deliver the integration required.

Our solution:

We worked with ev.energy to deliver IOT EV charger integrations, communicating directly with the charger via Wi-Fi to provision it to the platform.

We embedded within ev.energy's engineering team, and lead the development of the integration project - across iOS and Android. We build a custom module that allowed the app to:

scan for nearby chargers (the user would need to tap an internal 'connect' button on the charger to make it available for provisioning)
connect to a specific charger (the charger would start a local hidden Wi-Fi network, that the app could connect to)
interface with the charger (providing it with the user's Wi-Fi network details for long-term use, and setting other properties to allow the charger to work optimally).

Beyond the IOT EV charger integration project, we worked long-term with ev.energy to scale their mobile engineering team - enhancing engineering processes (such as test-driven development, QA, CI/CD, tech debt resolution), unblocking long-standing technical initiatives, mentoring engineers in mobile engineering, and leading other initiatives to allow new utility programs to rapidly start without requiring engineering capacity. We also delivered the mobile interface for a series of large commercial initiatives, including for Con Edison's SmartCharge New York program - the largest managed charging program in the US.

By delivering for ev.energy, we:

empowered EV drivers to charge cheaper, and make better use of renewables
ensured that demand on the energy grid is balanced at peak times
cemented processes within engineering surrounding best practices, to provide long-term stability and ensure the app can scale with future growth.