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Here's the reality, AI is going to transform EV charging operations faster than many people realize.
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But let's be clear, software won't eliminate the hard part.
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Chargers will still break and truck rolls will still matter.
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What AI will do is change how efficiently sites are monitored, managed, and optimized, especially as batteries, dynamic load management, and grid constraints become central to profitability.
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In this episode of Field Frequency, I sat down with Michael Greenberg of Voltra to talk about where this industry is going.
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And one thing is clear the future of charging is no longer just about deployment.
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It's intelligent orchestration.
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Let's get into it.
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Today I'm joined by Michael Greenberg of Voltra to discuss a major shift happening in our industry.
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As charging infrastructure gets more complex, the real challenge is no longer just getting chargers out there.
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It's not just about deploying assets.
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It's about orchestrating energy and software and operations in real time.
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So we've got a subject matter expert here on the line with us.
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Michael's an industry vet and his resume speaks for itself.
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And I'm glad that uh he's able to join us today.
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So, Michael, welcome to Feld Frequency.
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Glad to have you here today.
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Thanks for having me, Jason.
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Yeah, I want to kick off this conversation with your professional journey into energy and technology and infrastructure.
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Uh, if you could you know share your background with the audience and then let's talk about Volture after that and what Volture is doing in the in the ecosystem.
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Sure.
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So I I spent 25 years in enterprise software, primarily in marketing technology, and I kind of got tired of just trying to sell people more stuff.
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So I shifted into the EV charging world, worked in and CPMS, a company based in Europe, you know, really focusing on growth in North America.
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But it really kind of introduced me to the to the EV charging world and to the broader energy world.
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And, you know, I I as much as I like EV charging and it's it's a a really interesting industry, um, when the opportunity came up to join Voltra, you know, I I sat down and saw really how these guys are thinking about the the problems and the challenges that face EV charging.
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And it just seemed like there was a really, really interesting path and real interesting vision for the future.
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You know, they looked, they actually started as an EV charging software company, a CPMS, but saw the the challenge as you know, how do you get all of the things in an energy site, the chargers, battery systems, solar, meters, inverters, you know, building loads, you know, how do how do you make all that stuff work together?
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And it turns out there's actually not very good solutions for that.
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And so they spent, well, we, I guess it is now, uh spent the last couple of years building out the the infrastructure to really allow uh multi-vendor complex energy sites to work together.
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You know, and EV charging turns out almost every EV charging site actually fits into that category.
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So, you know, what the the the value prop is really focused on making the management of these complex sites a lot easier by kind of abstracting away the infrastructure so that you know the software guys can focus on their software and the hardware guys can focus on their hardware and the operators can just operate and everything talks to each other and they can sort of not have to worry about you know how does how does the charger and the battery system, you know, software deal with each other.
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So we kind of handle that whole that whole layer underneath.
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So it's you know, it's been a couple months now.
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It's been very eye-opening from a technology perspective, you know, to work for a AI native company that's composed mostly of you know technologists under 30.
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So the speed at which the company moves, the speed at which we develop, the speed at which we can you know improve and and drive productivity is is absolutely insane.
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So it's been one of the one of the most interesting and fun roller coaster rides I've had in a long time.
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So it's been fun.
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Well, I think it's interesting that Voltra had a pivot early on that was looking at the landscape of EV through the lens of a CMS solution and realized that uh there was probably something else to be built rather than just another software product or another CMS.
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And so, you know, don't want to oversimplify the solution that Voltra's brought to market, but I would like the audience to understand what what where you sit in the ecosystem.
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I mean, you you've not just built a connective, you've built a connective layer for energy infrastructure.
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This is goes beyond a CMS platform.
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And so maybe help kind of flesh out what Voltra is doing for the audience.
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So Voltra right now, Voltra really is consists of two things.
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So Fabric is our essentially infrastructure software platform.
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That that is the real kind of secret sauce around the offering.
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And then we have the Vulture Energy Cloud, which offers a number of complementary technologies to run chargers or do DLM or have an EMS on a site.
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But really, the core is fabric.
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It's it's the underlying infrastructure.
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And fabric solves four problems simultaneously, right?
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So this was the big insight.
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This is what came out of the original work in CMS, which was you have to solve for four things at once.
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You have to solve for connectivity, right?
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You need to be able to connect to the hardware through whatever means necessary.
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Now, in the EV charging world, everybody knows about OCPP and OCPI, but you know, there's Modbus and CAN bus and MQTT and all these different protocols, these industrial protocols and automation protocols and energy protocols that all have to sort of play nice when you're talking about an energy site.
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The second bit is the configuration, right?
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So when you're thinking about how the different pieces on a site have to talk to each other, you need to make sure that the configurations on those devices can play nice with each other.
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And that's actually a much harder problem than you would think because configuration has to sort of survive all the changes in in energy levels and all the all everything that's going on on that site, and the configs have to essentially address that.
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The third is is the monitoring, right?
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So how is the, you know, how what's the relationship look like?
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Like what's the map between all the different pieces?
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You know, this this thing is related to that thing, and of course the configs also make a difference between you know all the different combinations of things that that connect it you know impacts the config.
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And then over time, what happens to maintain that?
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So the a new pro a new charger gets added to a site, or you know, they decide to add solar to a site, or you know, they were dealing with a bus depot and they they had 20 buses and now they have 25.
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Okay, well, so they bought two more chargers to deal with the load, and now all of a sudden the entire site is different.
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So managing those four things, right?
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The the connectivity, the configuration, the monitoring, and the maintenance over time is all has to be solved simultaneously in order for an energy site to actually work really, really well.
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And so that's the the whole idea is that you know you you tackle all of that, and then the CPMS can can work with all the other things that are going on at a site.
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The the EMS that's governing the site, the best that's governing battery, they can all kind of talk to each other.
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And it really just simplifies the problem that it that energy sites have to work nice together.
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And again, this was the problem the company saw.
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And this, you know, we we basically spent two years building a solution that just does this.
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So for those of you who are familiar with Palantir, it's uh the the notion of the ontology layer that Palantir uses to sort of organize information is very much the same kind of approach that that we took at Voltra to understand what happens at an energy site and how to be able to manage it in a much more elegant, modern fashion that makes it much simpler for whoever the site operator is or the site builder is, you know, to build the site and then operate the site.
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Yeah.
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So our industry is, of course, acronym laden.
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And so just adding a little bit of a translation layer for the audience that may be listening and understood or or maybe didn't understand some of the things Michael was talking about.
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When we're talking about EMS, we're talking about energy management software.
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We're talking about best, we're talking about battery energy storage, we're talking about CPMS or CMS, those are synonymous terms that basically talk about the software managing the hardware.
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And so what Voltra is doing is bringing in all of these software stacks into a single pane of glass that helps understand okay, when the site was deployed, it didn't have a battery there supplemented.
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It was just grid connection, and maybe there was energy needed, offsets needed.
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And so there's been a battery energy solution or battery storage solution integrated in the site.
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And so Voltra's solution is bringing that into a single pane of glass and helping with that.
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You know, it's it's funny with charging.
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So, you know, not to not to speak for you, Michael, but I always try to add a translation layer because we we know what we're talking about when we're talking about CMS.
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But it's like one guest recently was talking about whenever he was coming into or getting an invitation into the space, the term was used EV, and he's like, that's great.
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I'm interested.
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What does EV stand for?
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So just adding the translation layer there for the audience.
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But uh, you know, chargers are the ones that get the most attention.
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That's where the focus is.
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Growth in our space, growth in charging sites.
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It's kind of always a bit anchored on what the charger is, what brand is it, what's the output, and how many are there.
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But you know, the market is is is growing and and it has had to outgrow kind of that focal point and and look at other things.
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And so growth is is shifted towards depots.
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We're seeing um, you know, multi-tenant sites where there is a retail component and a fleet component.
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So as growth transitions to depots and and fleets are electrifying, or maybe multi-family and workplace or integrating, charging, all of that is changing site conditions and site needs.
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And so from from just I'd like to get your comments on on what what is changing and what does this shift tell us about the direction of the market and the consequent need for a solution that brings all that into that single pane of glass.
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I know I said a lot at you, but I think you hopefully you're tracking with me there.
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Yeah.
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So I, you know, I think the the market, I guess the best way to put it is it's getting less sexy, right?
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So everybody talked about and thought about public charging, fast charging, you know, Nevi funding, you know, build the build the big sites with the you know, the really cool chargers and you know, people see it.
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You know, that was kind of like the the a lot of what people focused on.
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And it and it's still true to some extent.
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But, you know, a lot of where at least what we're seeing and and the people that we work with are seeing is this, you know, there's a lot more focus now on depots, on municipal fleets, kind of multifamilies really starting to continue to grow, workplace, destination, you know, the like the less sexy parts of the industry, but where people actually need the charging.
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Like they, you know, they they get to the office and they want to charge during the day so they have enough to go home.
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They you live in an in an apartment building and you know don't necessarily have deeded parking or or you know energy at all the way to their stall, so they might need you know, shared charging there.
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You know, how do you do you do you use submeter?
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How do you make sure they get built properly?
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Often it's not free, so you have to figure out who actually pays for it.
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You know, there's just all the kind of nitty-gritty of of integrating the the charging experience into the into daily life, right?
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That that appears to be where there's a lot of traction these days.
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So, you know, the there are specialists, I think, who really get the public charging bit, and and more and more and more of the build-out in public charging is is getting into a smaller and smaller group.
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But I think, you know, one of the things I said a couple of years ago that I thought I'd see we'd see in this industry is is much more specialization, right?
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Both on a geographic basis and on a type basis.
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And I think we're definitely starting to see that now.
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People who understand how really how to do L2, people really understand how to do workplace, people really understand how to do fleet and depot.
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Like everyone is really kind of getting narrower and narrower on their focus, you know, because at the end of the day, you know, you got to figure out how to be profitable, both on the vendor side and on the operator side.
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And so that that sort of relentless march to profitability is has really kind of you know ended the the first phase of, I think, the charging build-out, or maybe you call it the second phase.
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And we're now kind of getting into the third phase, you know, which is uh is a much more pragmatic, you know, kind of steely-eyed view of of how you build out, you know, the charging ecosystem.
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I think that's a good synopsis of of the trajectory.
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It's it was growth at all costs, then moving towards profitability.
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I think you you you mentioned profitability today.
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Uh, we've seen the stringencies around CapEx.
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We uh just today I was talking to an operator who has been successful with NEVI deployments, but as an organization and strategically they are looking at pivoting away from that.
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Even though NEVI has been successful for them, they're they're they're looking other places, and NEVI may not be a part of their strategy moving forward just because their plans are a little bit different and aligned in a different direction.
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And and obviously they've got a charging program that is not dependent on subsidies to even get forward.
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But profitability is is one of the a path to profitability or a clear line around it is is what's matters most, is what matters most to operators today.
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And so in your conversations, both at a macro level in the industry or or with your clients, how much how much are you seeing that conver conversation shifting to away from like when can we get the chargers in to how are we going to efficiently operate this site?
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Yeah.
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I mean, you've hit the nail on the head.
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I mean, the problem is that there's there's just not enough money to go around, right?
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When you when you look at the gross margin on electricity, you know, there's the the that that that amount of money is all you really have to play with when all is said and done.
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And in the US, that margin is actually lower than it is in in a lot of markets.
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And so, you know, when someone looks at their PL and looks at all those costs below the line, they look at sales, marketing, you know, technology, you know, GNA, all the things that they have to spend and cover on a monthly basis and realize I just don't have a lot of room.
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I I have got to figure out how to grind down the cost side because I can't necessarily assume that I can grow out of it, right?
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To to spread those costs in a way that you know will eventually lead to profitability.
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So you you you see, you know, the big players in particular, and and really everybody you talk to is just looking at how can I take another point out of this?
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How can I take 50 basis points out of here?
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How do I cut my marketing there?
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How do I cut my technology costs there?
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You know, everybody's just you know understanding like they they need to operate this, they need to figure out how to run this as a business.
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And there's not a lot of extra money, you know, you know, venture or government or wherever it's gonna come from.
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If that's not coming in to bail you out, you know, you're gonna have to find a way to do it yourself.
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And and that's you know, very much about efficiency, you know.
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And and I'll I'll say when you talk to folks in Europe, you know, they they kind of went through this process a few years ago.
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And so the the people that are left, the operators that are left in Europe, almost, you know, every just about every single one of them, that's how they work at the world.
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They they look at a site and try to figure out how it's gonna pencil out.
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You know, they don't look at subsidies, they don't look at how it's gonna be funded.
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Or I mean they do, but at the end of the day, it's gotta the the site has to work with you know expected volume, expected traffic, you know, the margin margin on sale, how much throughput you're gonna get.
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And if they can't make it pencil out, they'll walk away.
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You know, and so what you end up finding is people are are finding really, really creative real estate deals to get, you know, poor pieces of land that they feel like they can figure out a way to drive traffic to that site, you know, and and and improve profitability just because their their carrying costs end up being lower.
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It's equally at ChemPower, everything starts with you.
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We design solutions that are simple to install and effortless to use.
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Our team is here to make your journey seamless.
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From engineering and sales to hands-on service in the field.
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Your success drives ours.
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Our solutions are built for every segment of mobility, charging any vehicle, anywhere.
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For every customer.
00:16:10.960 --> 00:16:18.559
Obviously, Bulltra was pivoting away from CMS just solely as a solution, a market solution or a mark market offering.
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Because, you know, and maybe this is a point that you you and I had had had a conversation offline.
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Maybe you made this offline about kind of the early or easy problems on the front end being being already kind of solved for.
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And so software is in the, you know, the OCPI, the OCCP, the the resetting of faults, the standard kind of table stakes around the CMS that addresses firmware updates or software patches, et cetera, those are are increasingly manageable remotely.
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But there are some harder operational problems that the industry has got to address.
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Um what what are what are some of those that you've observed and what what are what are some of the next corners we need to take or curves?
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Yeah, well, you know, the again, I I think that it's it's key to take away that it the easy stuff is fixed, right?
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Now one's kind of realized like 70% of what typically goes wrong, I can do a soft reset or a hard reset, and it's probably gonna fix things.
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You know, if it's uh if it's something that's physically wrong with the site, you know, software, no amount of software is gonna fix that.
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You're gonna have to roll a truck, someone's gonna have to go take a look, you know, open up the, take a look at the panel, open up the box and see what's going on.
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But, you know, the the the new kind of paths that are coming down in terms of like V to G and V to H and plug-in charge, you know, kind of juggling all the interoperability and the software interaction with with other entities, you know, is starting is also stressing organizations because a lot of them were really just built to operate, right?
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They're they w they don't have you know big software departments to to handle these things, but they have to figure out how to play in the ecosystem really, really well.
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Because you have to have the same experience as you have, you know, honestly, everyone's got to think about, you know, what what's Tesla doing and how do I compete with that?
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Because that's sort of the gold standard in terms of customer experience.
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And so, you know, they you you have to have the uptime, you have to have visibility, you have to have findability, all those things have to be checked off, you know, if if you want to survive over the long run.
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And so I think this is part of why, again, you you see specialization because people are trying to find niches where it really works.
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Yeah, I agree.
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Yeah.
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So it's you know, it's just uh the just the nature is is changing because you also just can't throw people at problems, right?
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You have to you have to lean into the technology.
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You have to learn like understand how to use roaming effectively and work with the MSPs and and you know work with the the the plug and charge networks and the D, you know, the PKI networks, just like get the technology right, but try to do it like really fast and easy.
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Work with the right CPMS who can get you there, you know, so that you're not you're enabled and you're really just focused on operations.
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Yeah.
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Well well said, and and leaning into the technology, I'd I'd like uh some to to get some comments from you around AI and even autonomous operation here, because you know, you you made a valid point.
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It's not just throwing people at at something to try to figure it out, it's leveraging the technology to do it in the right way.
00:19:11.839 --> 00:19:18.079
And we we've you know, I think the specialization that you've mentioned a couple times here, I think is key.
00:19:18.400 --> 00:19:25.440
We've seen companies struggle under the weight of what should have been a good thing, and and by that I mean vertical integration.
00:19:25.599 --> 00:19:30.319
But at the same time, it they were doing really well, maybe on one hand and not so well on the other.
00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:34.559
And maybe one area of the business was a cost center while the other had some profitability.
00:19:34.720 --> 00:19:42.319
And so I think zero in on that specialization and and basically driving in the lane that's right for you is makes the most sense.
00:19:42.480 --> 00:19:52.720
And so to your comments around the technology and and specifically AI, how it's it's changing infrastructure operations and at at rates that maybe we're not even aware.
00:19:52.880 --> 00:20:00.240
I mean, there's you know, there's obviously a lot of hype around AI, but there's also real utility there, real operational value.
00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:01.920
And so what are you seeing?
00:20:02.160 --> 00:20:06.799
Where do you see AI impacting charging infrastructure operations today?
00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:08.319
Is it diagnosis?
00:20:08.559 --> 00:20:09.680
Is it troubleshooting?
00:20:09.759 --> 00:20:10.400
What's that look like?
00:20:10.720 --> 00:20:13.839
Well, we could we could probably spend an hour just talking about this topic.
00:20:14.160 --> 00:20:14.720
I bet we could.
00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:18.240
But it's hard to summarize it in, you know, in a in a in a short period of time.
00:20:18.400 --> 00:20:42.160
But yeah, I think the the first takeaway is the the technology, the the AI technology itself is evolving so fast and becoming so powerful so quickly that unless you're really working with it on a daily basis and and understand just how good it is at figuring things out for you, you you you it's hard to even visualize how how much it could transform operations.
00:20:42.400 --> 00:21:03.039
And so, you know, when you look at pointing a, you know, a clawed CLI against an MCP server to understand what's going on in operations and asking it for, you know, to do investigation on your behalf or or pull metrics out to do a quick to do a quick report, you start to suddenly realize, wow, I I I don't actually need to go into the software anymore.
00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:06.480
I can just do all of this through through my AI interface.
00:21:06.559 --> 00:21:21.599
And it just the the whole mindset about developing product and and buying software and interacting with that software to manage your operations starts to kind of fall away because you can just kind of do all of it directly, you know, through an interface, an AI interface that will do pretty much anything you ask it to do.
00:21:21.759 --> 00:21:26.799
And, you know, for someone who hasn't really done this yet, listening, it's gonna sound very odd.
00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:28.720
Like that that doesn't make any sense to me.
00:21:28.799 --> 00:21:45.119
But once you live in it for a while, you realize like, wow, I can I can make this thing sing and dance and do whatever I want and build reports on the fly and build dashboards in 10 minutes, you know, from nothing, and just really understand and zero in on you know how to operate this business better.
00:21:45.200 --> 00:21:59.759
And you can you can start almost like building your own applications, like you, you're you're still leveraging this DPMS and EMS, but you can start giving it much more direct, you know, kind of guidance in terms of what you want to accomplish or pull the information out that may not be presented in the way you want it, but it will tell you.
00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:03.839
you know but you can pull it out and and and access it because the data is there.
00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:08.480
You're just you know you're you're just gonna structure it in a different way and let AI figure figure it out for you.
00:22:08.720 --> 00:22:13.119
So you know suddenly you know you're building agents to to monitor for things.
00:22:13.200 --> 00:22:16.559
You don't have to rely on reporter to to monitor and automate for you.
00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:20.720
You can just there's so much at your disposal with the tools that are out there today.
00:22:20.880 --> 00:22:22.880
You know the the world changed what is it now?
00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:25.119
I guess nine months ago, 10 months ago, right?
00:22:25.279 --> 00:22:26.880
When Cloud Code came out.
00:22:27.119 --> 00:22:33.519
And you you just have to lean into it at this point to to stay up with just how fast everything is changing.
00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:49.200
And and this is an opportunity also for for the operators that are are looking to step, you know, cut overhead looking for ways to repurpose people in other areas within the organization and and and and address some of this busy work.
00:22:49.440 --> 00:23:17.519
Most CMM as platforms, they've already been doing the monitoring and the alerting and all of that but but the the frontier we're at right now and and and beyond is that like you said the the AI agents that can be built in to identify the issues and diagnose root cause and all of this is solved is being solved for in the background in and really it's pointing us towards the the uptime that we're looking for and and how a site is is supported from a reliability standpoint.
00:23:17.680 --> 00:23:23.680
So the autonomy attached to the operations by way of the unlock that AI offers is is significant.
00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:25.440
And so appreciate those comments.
00:23:25.680 --> 00:23:32.319
Obviously as a service company Field Advantage is is is concerned on on the truck rolls that are are going to continue.
00:23:32.480 --> 00:23:43.759
We don't we're not saying the truck rolls are are going away by any means but there is a narrative and this is kind of the other side of the coin of our conversation is that AI and software is is going to automate everything.
00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:47.039
It's going to be perfect and yeah you don't need a service company anymore.
00:23:47.119 --> 00:23:57.759
But uh physical infrastructure breaks uh the friction points on the charger the screens the credit card readers the cables cable management all of that that fails or hardware failures or software failures.
00:23:57.839 --> 00:24:19.039
So instead of you know being a lud a Ludite reacting you know in a knee-jerk response to what AI is doing or not doing what what do you for those listening what do you what do you what would your comments be uh for field operations and truck roles that that are a critical layer and and and how software is not replacing that but supplementing and and and maybe even making those truck rolls smarter.
00:24:19.200 --> 00:25:24.079
What's that what's that what's your comments around yeah I I mean truck rolls don't go away by by any means like that and that you know in many ways this is actually part of the the the Voltra narrative which is okay we're trying to simplify the fit you know the physical world right simplify the management of the of the physical world because software is becoming so much easier software is becoming so much faster to develop and so much more adaptable the you know the the the focus and the emphasis goes back to the things that the physical things the things that break the things that need replacement the things that someone has to come in and check on or you know so the that the importance of understanding what you can do with software versus what you you need to have an appropriate level of of of support for in the physical world becomes very very important because you're probably going to drive costs down and you're gonna drive you know impact down on the software side but the physical stuff is going to be is going to continue is actually going to take up a larger and larger percentage of your of your focus and your emphasis and your and your expense because it isn't something you can sort of hand wave away with software, right?
00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:30.400
It's so you you you have to become more and more expert at understanding how to deal with the physical side of things.
00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:39.599
You know, maybe down the road that's that's you know evolving your your hardware in a way to try to reduce the number of Truck roles but again they're not going to go away.
00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:47.200
Stuff's gonna break people someone's gonna drive too close and you know bang into it you know someone's gonna cut a cable here and there.
00:25:47.279 --> 00:25:50.240
It's just those things are are just you know part of the business.
00:25:50.400 --> 00:25:57.680
And if anything as a percent of your total budget you you have to start allocating more and more because those are things you just can't make go with right that's right.
00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:16.480
It's important call out an allocation towards OM you know it's it's it's on the table now, but there was a a period early on where it was just focused on getting the chargers in and yeah the state's paying this amount or the you know there's a utility fund paying this amount or or so you know whatever it may look like.
00:26:16.960 --> 00:26:31.200
So we're I know we had commentary earlier on in in the conversation about you know the the multi-tiered solutions that are offered or are needed at a site in the you know the stack of of different components, uh battery energy.
00:26:31.440 --> 00:26:44.559
We're we're seeing more batteries paired with charging infrastructure and that's obviously for demand charges, mitigating that arbitrage, et cetera but uh where where are you seeing battery economics work today in real time?
00:26:44.720 --> 00:26:50.400
And uh what do people maybe misunderstand about the value of offsetting just strictly grid connection?
00:26:50.640 --> 00:26:50.799
Right.
00:26:51.039 --> 00:27:03.359
So battery is is a is a really interesting topic just because it's it's evolved so much and costs have come down so quickly and you know there's there's just much more access to battery than there was even a couple of years ago.
00:27:03.440 --> 00:27:03.599
Right.
00:27:03.680 --> 00:27:12.160
You're starting to see a lot more of the the hardware manufacturers building battery into the the the chassis themselves and actually including onboard battery.
00:27:12.400 --> 00:27:21.119
You have battery that's that's more separate on site, which is is probably more efficient overall because you're using the battery across multiple chargers and across multiple sessions.
00:27:21.279 --> 00:27:46.559
And what it does is you know it does it does a whole bunch of things right lets you do rate arbitrage you know lets you kind of participate more aggressively in demand response you know it you're really trying to focus on reducing demand charge you know and you can start getting into the you know the whole VPP you know world, you know, the the virtual power plant type stuff where you start looking at ways to you know expose capacity back to the grid, which the utilities are all desperate for right now, right?
00:27:46.640 --> 00:27:51.920
To to figure out how to how to mitigate some of the the load you know increase that's coming on.
00:27:52.240 --> 00:28:00.640
But one of the things I think that people have to understand about battery is that the economics makes sense best when it's charging and discharging every day.
00:28:07.200 --> 00:28:20.960
If you're in an area with a lot of solar, maybe there's a point in the middle of the day with sudden where everything gets pretty cheap because there's lots of excess solar energy coming in, grab it all then five o'clock rolls around eight o'clock, sun starts to go down, you know, batteries come come on a lot more aggressively.
00:28:21.119 --> 00:28:31.599
You know that charge discharge cycle that that 365 days a year is is where you you start to really make money or or offset cost and the economics start to make a lot more sense.
00:28:31.839 --> 00:28:42.559
And so as in a as a in the EV charging world you have to like think about how how is battery going to be like an equal partner to chargers on a given site.
00:28:42.720 --> 00:29:02.319
And how did how does my economic model change when I'm really balancing not just charging revenue but all the value that a battery can generate both in terms of cost savings and revenue from the utilities you know when you're talking about some of the aggregation and demand response type of revenue you can get or credits you can get from the utility.
00:29:02.480 --> 00:29:04.240
So the math also changed.
00:29:04.400 --> 00:29:14.559
I mean and it you know anyone who's really spent any time looking at the financial statements for Tesla knows that a huge chunk of their profitability for EV charging actually is from carbon credits.
00:29:14.640 --> 00:29:16.079
It's not actually from operations.
00:29:16.240 --> 00:29:31.039
So battery kind of helps you is is like another example of that where the where the the EV charging in and of itself may continue to be a lost leader, but you might be able to actually offset that and then some with understanding the economics of battery and how it fits in with everything.
00:29:31.200 --> 00:29:33.359
And so you need an energy management system.
00:29:33.519 --> 00:29:47.680
You need you know you need orchestration across the the different hard groups of hardware on a site you know and that's that's honestly what Voltra kind of sees and saw saw coming and really focused on how do we make that orchestration a lot simpler?
00:29:47.839 --> 00:30:15.759
How do we take a lot of the the difficulty in connecting and maintaining those connections and having the right configurations at a on a product by product level you know be not a headache and something you have to manage and and everything today in in a lot of places is like hand done and it's in an Excel spreadsheet or you know someone's got it in a you know they they did it once and they just and they and they handed it off and they walked away and then six months later everything's you know falling apart because all the configurations and are are no longer accurate.
00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:34.480
So dealing with that whole problem and making it so that you can manage battery and and actually manage energy appropriately is really that that's the optimization problem that everybody is is starting to to recognize like I would be really surprised to see any public charging that doesn't have battery you know six months now or nine months from now.
00:30:34.559 --> 00:30:46.960
I mean there's obviously things going on the ground that started a while ago but everything new, you know, just I I can't imagine how the economics don't work without you know a good a good chunk of of battery there to change the economics of the site.
00:30:47.200 --> 00:30:47.359
Yeah.
00:30:47.599 --> 00:31:24.880
And to those comments we're seeing operators public charging operators make announcements of sites with battery because they've seen the need and and you know whether you're looking at a a public charging site in a retail context or you're looking at fleets and depots, this the arbitrage around energy, the demand charge mitigation, dynamic load management, all of this site level orchestration that you've you've mentioned, those have become table stakes and and fleets and depots, they're having to work through all of that because they've got this this need to support their their fleet and they've got the power constraints that that are required to do that.
00:31:25.039 --> 00:31:52.160
But beyond beyond keeping load limits within beyond keeping the load within limits what uh how are systems intelligent prioritizing where the power goes based on the on the vehicle need or how important is that I guess you could say so you've I guess to simplify you've got a you've got a fleet with a with a normal operating profile and the vehicles are parked during the day and maybe they're out at you know a certain like a school bus, maybe it's it's parked during the middle of the day but it's out in the morning, out in the afternoon.
00:31:52.319 --> 00:31:55.599
There's a power allocation that's available for that at a grid level.
00:31:55.759 --> 00:32:05.200
And so all of that is hinges on dynamic load management and and and kind of that that single pane of glass that is seeing where that energy is at and how to move it around comments around that.
00:32:05.519 --> 00:32:11.759
Well yeah d again DLM is kind of like battery right again DLM is the acronym for dynamic load management.
00:32:11.920 --> 00:32:20.160
It's you you're you're going to see that everywhere like there's just there's probably almost no situation where you wouldn't expect to see that in a site.
00:32:20.319 --> 00:32:38.480
Depots in particular fleets in particular just because the the number of chargers and the num and the the amount of moving parts that have to be managed and so what what that does for you is you helps you optimize the state of charge for when's when when a vehicle has to be off the off out of the depot and and back on the road.
00:32:38.640 --> 00:32:48.160
And so you really have to you don't want to have someone running around you know unplugging a bus and moving it to a different spot that has a you know a higher power charger.
00:32:48.319 --> 00:33:00.799
You know you want to you want to be able to sort of manage things and take other ones down if you need to to ensure that all the current's getting into the ones that have to leave quickly or came in late with a low state of charge and you know they're that one's going to go back on on a route quickly.
00:33:07.039 --> 00:33:23.359
But the the the other part of this which you know is is not something that most people think about is that there's a lot more standards and regulations now about having to be able to to have physical cutoffs for room chargers if the load starts hit bumping up against the maximum, right?
00:33:23.599 --> 00:33:34.400
In Canada in particular, there's a lot of rules that are now going into place that you you you need to have much more aggressive hardware that that will do a shutoff if something is approaching a load limit.
00:33:34.559 --> 00:33:38.880
So you want DLM to be able to sort of manage to keep things below that level.
00:33:39.039 --> 00:33:54.640
So even in circumstances where you wouldn't have bothered with DLM in the past, you're kind of going to have to think about how do I use that in a, in a multifamily building because I have a I've I've got a a circuit that that can't can't go above a certain level, but I don't want it to cut off completely that's not ideal.
00:33:54.799 --> 00:34:02.480
But I can maybe manage it and keep it below so that you know it doesn't create havoc for the building management to go in and then figure out what do I do now that half my chargers are offline.
00:34:02.640 --> 00:34:09.760
And so that you know that that whole notion of the regulatory understanding of of how you manage EV chargers is starting to have an impact.
00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:14.320
And DLM is one of the more important aspects of how to deal how to how to address that.
00:34:14.480 --> 00:34:23.280
There's an even more kind of challenging element in that same topic which is you can't necessarily manage DLM entirely using cloud services, right?
00:34:23.360 --> 00:34:29.280
Because now you have to worry about SIM cards or whatever internet access you have that's controlling the profiles and the chargers.
00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:38.960
You know, again in Canada they're they're saying no you have to have local control so that if you lose connectivity, you know, the if if you lost connectivity under their rules, you'd probably have to shut the whole thing off.
00:34:39.039 --> 00:34:44.000
But now you want to be able to have local controllers and say, no, I I I can control this locally so it's not as big of an issue.
00:34:44.239 --> 00:34:46.239
You're almost certainly going to get to see that everywhere.
00:34:46.480 --> 00:35:12.320
So you know using using cloud software to manage DLM at on local circuits is probably going to move to a much more of a local control because that's much more aligned with how the grid operators and and really the people who who have been living and breathing you know the energy grid for you know the last hundred years, how they think in terms of the resiliency that you need and being able to island sites that are that are problematic and cut them off from you know before they have an impact on the rest of the grid.
00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:17.599
So it's one of those things like two months from now, I'll bet you my answer is probably going to be different.
00:35:17.840 --> 00:35:44.960
Just it's the way that the we're we're kind of seeing these things start to change as people are understanding how to EV chargers and honestly data centers, because that's a whole nother topic, you know, very important for the grid but it the kind of things that that data centers do to grid loads you know are starting to trickle down into other parts of the grid because they're realizing what an impact some of these some of these you know sudden increases and decreases in and draw can have on the rest of the grid, you know, particularly now that that people aren't aren't can't build as much.
00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:46.239
And I did leave a topic out.
00:35:46.320 --> 00:35:55.119
So that actually there was one other thing I wanted to say on this was you know a lot of the utilities understand that deal that you know they can't give you as much power as you want.
00:35:55.199 --> 00:35:59.039
So the notion of of flexible interconnects is becoming much more accepted.
00:35:59.280 --> 00:36:07.360
And DLM is is absolutely necessary for that right you need a draw of X and they can only give you X minus 200.
00:36:07.519 --> 00:36:21.360
So for the 360 days a year you can do up to X, but for those five days a year where they know they have to you know they're gonna have to draw you down, you need to be able to prove that you're gonna stay below that limit you know and that's how you get the interconnect to begin with.
00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:34.000
And DLM is is the mechanism by which you can ensure that so PGE does that in California you strip you if you if you look at what the utilities are are putting out there that notion of flexible interconnects is probably going to be pretty widespread three years from now.
00:36:34.159 --> 00:36:47.440
And so you you need to embrace and lean into DLM and and what it takes to enable that again probably at the at the hardware level the local level in order to to convince the utilities that yes, you know, flexible interconnect works for us.
00:36:48.000 --> 00:37:03.599
That's that's very interesting insights that you just shared there, Michael, especially with the you know the tieback to what what Canada is doing in terms of of setting in place measures for a site like if you're going to reach your your your maximum output there's got to be controls in place that you don't get that.
00:37:03.760 --> 00:37:09.760
And then of course other site level systems in place to control DLM dynamic load management.
00:37:09.920 --> 00:37:17.440
And and yet we've even seen so that you know at a legislative level basically mandating that you're operating these sites this is what you need to do.
00:37:17.679 --> 00:37:25.440
It's obviously protecting the the operator in a sense from a from an OPEC standpoint uh but also from grid constraint and and and grid management.
00:37:25.760 --> 00:37:47.679
Also interesting because I I think your your comments are interesting because we know that like utility programs and incentives around hardware rebates, you know purchasing hardware and or offsetting the cost of it whether deploying or just acquiring the hardware the feature of DLM is is been contingent on the the hardware itself having what is it open ADR I think that's the open ADR or something.
00:37:47.840 --> 00:37:58.719
I forget the actual nomenclature around the basically the feature of on the hardware where utility can can can maybe throttle back the hardware's output, derate the unit as a s as a sense.
00:37:58.880 --> 00:38:00.239
But that that would be interesting.
00:38:00.320 --> 00:38:11.519
I could see some PUCs doing something similar at some point in the future to what you what you alluded to as is possibly happening in Canada or is that happening in Canada or is that kind of what the trend is?
00:38:11.840 --> 00:38:14.559
No my understanding is there's actually legislation that's already passed.
00:38:14.639 --> 00:38:21.199
I'm not I'm not 100% certain whether it's in place or coming up soon but everybody we're talking to is is is playing for it right now.
00:38:21.760 --> 00:38:32.000
All the hardware vendors not not the charger vendors but the people who sell the other stuff into the sites are all spitting up their their offerings um to cover for that Canada.
00:38:32.239 --> 00:38:46.880
But what it what it's what it's pointing to is there's another there's another kind of evolution coming I think in in how behind the meter energy sites are are managed, which is you know in order to have that local control, you basically need software running locally.
00:38:47.039 --> 00:38:57.840
And so you're starting to to add controllers onto sites that can can run containerized software environments so that you can have local management of you know of these sites, right?
00:38:57.920 --> 00:39:10.800
So suddenly this whole notion of of infrastructure exposing infrastructure as software becomes even more important because you've got a local version running that wants to go to talk to everything, but you want to make sure that nothing goes wrong because otherwise the whole thing falls apart.
00:39:10.960 --> 00:39:20.719
So it has to be super stable and and very predictable in terms of that local Docker container running code can is talking everything and there's no points of failure.
00:39:20.880 --> 00:39:27.440
And again that's that's what we do is make sure that that every that all that that whole environment's going to work properly.
00:39:27.599 --> 00:39:49.039
And as more and more requirements come around around having that local control, you know, we're fairly sure you're just gonna see everything move off the cloud and into you know local local not again it's true local like instances of software running these these essentially connected microgrids like really really tiny microgrids that are almost like independently managed.
00:39:49.199 --> 00:40:04.800
So again the the the technology is evolving you know how it looks a couple years from now will will be probably different but you're gonna see more and more of this kind of evolution of the grid from what used to be a a hardware game to kind of this hybrid hardware software game.
00:40:05.119 --> 00:41:02.320
Yeah that's that's uh that's insightful I think um you know it may seem confusing uh to those that are thinking well you know we've all had this shift towards cloud and virtual power plants and everything virtualized and stuff but the point in the localization and and the site control is really as a way to mitigate connectivity issues at the at the broader site level it's connectivity it's you know the the the utilities all know that they it's grow the demand's growing faster than supply and everything they can do to try to squeeze a little extra performance out of every single essentially small microgrid in the world in in in the country you know everything behind a meter anything that's got a you know a bunch of different hardware in it you can think of as a connected microgrid you know if I can make it 5% more efficient across five million sites or 10 million sites, that basically deals with the entire demand problem we have for the next 10 or 15 years.
00:41:02.559 --> 00:41:12.639
So you know trying to find ways to slowly but surely make improvements so that we can live with what we have across all of these different locations, you know, that that's kind of what they're trying to do.
00:41:12.719 --> 00:41:17.760
Now EV charging sites are probably you know it's the second biggest problem for utilities after data centers, right?
00:41:17.920 --> 00:41:21.199
Because they tend to have these really big draw and need a whole bunch to get going.
00:41:21.360 --> 00:41:22.639
But then it's very up and down.
00:41:22.800 --> 00:41:28.960
Like a data center is pretty consistent, but you know EV charging is, you know can have peaks and values throughout the course of the day.
00:41:29.119 --> 00:41:46.320
And so the more you know more efficient and kind of ability there is to kind of live within their means in the EV charging world and maybe even reduce the draw by using battery, the happier the utilities are because then they can go focus on other things, you know, and stay and try to keep that demand from outstripping the supply.
00:41:46.719 --> 00:41:56.800
Well I know in response to one of my earlier questions you made you made a comment about how the answers could change you know six months from now and that's just uh the nature of our industry.
00:41:56.880 --> 00:42:11.920
But uh I'm just curious, you know, from a forward looking standpoint if we if maybe we're sitting down a a year from now when you look at the industry and the changes that are needed or maybe maybe it's need or maybe it's nice to have what could or should change the most?
00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:18.559
I mean is is it is the biggest shift need to be pointing you know all in towards AI or software automation.
00:42:18.719 --> 00:42:21.920
You know your comments around battery adoption are a good example.
00:42:22.400 --> 00:42:25.039
But you know where where could we go?
00:42:25.280 --> 00:42:26.960
Where should we go, I guess is the question.
00:42:27.280 --> 00:42:27.360
Right.
00:42:27.519 --> 00:42:34.480
You know I think in a perfect world, you know, and and I'll kind of keep it at EV charging and kind of like an charging ecosystem.
00:42:34.639 --> 00:42:35.840
You would have batteries everywhere.
00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:53.199
You would have something like solar, something that is a renewable but it's it's it's less about the being renewable as it is about you know not requiring the gridness being sort of behind the meter, you know, it's a it's a distributed energy resource on a site that helps reduce the load to the grid.
00:42:53.280 --> 00:43:05.920
You know, if everything had had some solar everything had a battery then a lot of things become more possible right and then you know if you talk to operators they're they're they're starting to get better at at juggling all those things.
00:43:06.159 --> 00:43:12.960
But you know the big thing again looking looking out a year or two is yeah AI is going to manage all this.
00:43:13.119 --> 00:43:25.519
Like we we might we might come back in a year and say yeah you know what we don't really have much to do because we just get up in the morning and you know log in and tell tell the AI what we want to do today and then we go play golf, right?
00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:34.960
Because it's so good and and it can sort of handle 99.9% of of all the downstream tasks of of what you're trying to accomplish that you know there's just just not much for us to do.
00:43:35.360 --> 00:43:38.719
I mean actually there'll still be stuff for you to do because again stuff's gonna break.
00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:40.800
Someone's gonna get in a truck and go fix it, right?
00:43:40.960 --> 00:43:54.320
But you know, again just just seeing how much and I hate to hit the same topic again and again but how much AI has changed everything in the last nine months, you know, just I just think about where we were in October before Clawed code got released and you know versus today.
00:43:54.400 --> 00:44:04.480
And I just kind of imagine like another year from now how much better it's gonna be and how much how much less we have to think about the detail work and how much more it can handle on our behalf.
00:44:04.719 --> 00:44:10.719
So I I think if we come back and re-record in a year, that's going to be the you know the number one thing that we see.
00:44:11.039 --> 00:44:11.360
Yeah.
00:44:11.679 --> 00:44:34.960
Agreed agreed Michael I appreciate you coming on Field Frequency for those that are listening and want to connect with you directly I know you're active on on LinkedIn but um of course we'll have uh in our show notes links to Voltra links to your LinkedIn but um what's uh what's the best way to connect with you Michael one of the good things about being an early uh employee at a company is you get your first name as your email so mine's pretty easy.
00:44:35.519 --> 00:44:38.239
Michael at Vultra.com is is how you get a hold of me.
00:44:38.320 --> 00:44:40.960
So you know I love connecting with people I love chatting with people.
00:44:41.039 --> 00:44:43.599
If you want to connect on LinkedIn would love to connect there.
00:44:43.679 --> 00:44:52.079
You know I'm a big part of what I do is is really talking to people and understanding the kind of challenges that they're faced with or the or the benefits that their companies can bring.
00:44:52.159 --> 00:44:56.159
You know so I love talking to partners I love talking to folks that are active in the ecosystem.
00:44:56.239 --> 00:45:02.960
You know I try to be active in in the organizations that are that are kind of guiding the industry forward and and I'll continue to do that.
00:45:03.039 --> 00:45:08.960
So would love to chat with folks you know don't feel like you're imposing on me just you know reach out and you know let's have a chat.
00:45:09.199 --> 00:45:10.880
Well thank you for coming on Field Frequency.
00:45:10.960 --> 00:45:15.760
It was a pleasure to have you thanks Jason this episode was produced and edited by the team at Autozi.
00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:20.880
To find out more visit autosy.co a u t o z y dotco
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.519
Here's the reality, AI is going to transform EV charging operations faster than many people realize.
00:00:05.679 --> 00:00:08.320
But let's be clear, software won't eliminate the hard part.
00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:11.199
Chargers will still break and truck rolls will still matter.
00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:20.320
What AI will do is change how efficiently sites are monitored, managed, and optimized, especially as batteries, dynamic load management, and grid constraints become central to profitability.
00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:25.839
In this episode of Field Frequency, I sat down with Michael Greenberg of Voltra to talk about where this industry is going.
00:00:25.920 --> 00:00:30.000
And one thing is clear the future of charging is no longer just about deployment.
00:00:30.160 --> 00:00:31.679
It's intelligent orchestration.
00:00:31.839 --> 00:00:33.039
Let's get into it.
00:00:42.479 --> 00:00:47.600
Today I'm joined by Michael Greenberg of Voltra to discuss a major shift happening in our industry.
00:00:47.759 --> 00:00:52.799
As charging infrastructure gets more complex, the real challenge is no longer just getting chargers out there.
00:00:52.880 --> 00:00:54.240
It's not just about deploying assets.
00:00:54.320 --> 00:00:58.159
It's about orchestrating energy and software and operations in real time.
00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:01.520
So we've got a subject matter expert here on the line with us.
00:01:01.840 --> 00:01:05.280
Michael's an industry vet and his resume speaks for itself.
00:01:05.359 --> 00:01:08.079
And I'm glad that uh he's able to join us today.
00:01:08.159 --> 00:01:10.239
So, Michael, welcome to Feld Frequency.
00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:11.200
Glad to have you here today.
00:01:11.519 --> 00:01:12.239
Thanks for having me, Jason.
00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:18.400
Yeah, I want to kick off this conversation with your professional journey into energy and technology and infrastructure.
00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:26.319
Uh, if you could you know share your background with the audience and then let's talk about Volture after that and what Volture is doing in the in the ecosystem.
00:01:26.719 --> 00:01:26.959
Sure.
00:01:27.200 --> 00:01:34.480
So I I spent 25 years in enterprise software, primarily in marketing technology, and I kind of got tired of just trying to sell people more stuff.
00:01:34.719 --> 00:01:43.920
So I shifted into the EV charging world, worked in and CPMS, a company based in Europe, you know, really focusing on growth in North America.
00:01:44.079 --> 00:01:48.959
But it really kind of introduced me to the to the EV charging world and to the broader energy world.
00:01:49.120 --> 00:02:03.519
And, you know, I I as much as I like EV charging and it's it's a a really interesting industry, um, when the opportunity came up to join Voltra, you know, I I sat down and saw really how these guys are thinking about the the problems and the challenges that face EV charging.
00:02:03.599 --> 00:02:08.639
And it just seemed like there was a really, really interesting path and real interesting vision for the future.
00:02:08.879 --> 00:02:28.400
You know, they looked, they actually started as an EV charging software company, a CPMS, but saw the the challenge as you know, how do you get all of the things in an energy site, the chargers, battery systems, solar, meters, inverters, you know, building loads, you know, how do how do you make all that stuff work together?
00:02:28.560 --> 00:02:31.120
And it turns out there's actually not very good solutions for that.
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And so they spent, well, we, I guess it is now, uh spent the last couple of years building out the the infrastructure to really allow uh multi-vendor complex energy sites to work together.
00:02:43.759 --> 00:02:48.240
You know, and EV charging turns out almost every EV charging site actually fits into that category.
00:02:48.479 --> 00:03:13.919
So, you know, what the the the value prop is really focused on making the management of these complex sites a lot easier by kind of abstracting away the infrastructure so that you know the software guys can focus on their software and the hardware guys can focus on their hardware and the operators can just operate and everything talks to each other and they can sort of not have to worry about you know how does how does the charger and the battery system, you know, software deal with each other.
00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:16.240
So we kind of handle that whole that whole layer underneath.
00:03:16.479 --> 00:03:19.120
So it's you know, it's been a couple months now.
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It's been very eye-opening from a technology perspective, you know, to work for a AI native company that's composed mostly of you know technologists under 30.
00:03:30.159 --> 00:03:38.639
So the speed at which the company moves, the speed at which we develop, the speed at which we can you know improve and and drive productivity is is absolutely insane.
00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:42.960
So it's been one of the one of the most interesting and fun roller coaster rides I've had in a long time.
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So it's been fun.
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Well, I think it's interesting that Voltra had a pivot early on that was looking at the landscape of EV through the lens of a CMS solution and realized that uh there was probably something else to be built rather than just another software product or another CMS.
00:04:01.039 --> 00:04:10.960
And so, you know, don't want to oversimplify the solution that Voltra's brought to market, but I would like the audience to understand what what where you sit in the ecosystem.
00:04:11.039 --> 00:04:16.800
I mean, you you've not just built a connective, you've built a connective layer for energy infrastructure.
00:04:16.959 --> 00:04:18.800
This is goes beyond a CMS platform.
00:04:18.879 --> 00:04:23.199
And so maybe help kind of flesh out what Voltra is doing for the audience.
00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:27.680
So Voltra right now, Voltra really is consists of two things.
00:04:27.839 --> 00:04:32.399
So Fabric is our essentially infrastructure software platform.
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That that is the real kind of secret sauce around the offering.
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And then we have the Vulture Energy Cloud, which offers a number of complementary technologies to run chargers or do DLM or have an EMS on a site.
00:04:47.519 --> 00:04:49.120
But really, the core is fabric.
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It's it's the underlying infrastructure.
00:04:50.879 --> 00:04:54.639
And fabric solves four problems simultaneously, right?
00:04:54.720 --> 00:04:55.839
So this was the big insight.
00:04:56.000 --> 00:05:02.160
This is what came out of the original work in CMS, which was you have to solve for four things at once.
00:05:02.319 --> 00:05:04.560
You have to solve for connectivity, right?
00:05:04.720 --> 00:05:07.839
You need to be able to connect to the hardware through whatever means necessary.
00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:26.240
Now, in the EV charging world, everybody knows about OCPP and OCPI, but you know, there's Modbus and CAN bus and MQTT and all these different protocols, these industrial protocols and automation protocols and energy protocols that all have to sort of play nice when you're talking about an energy site.
00:05:26.480 --> 00:05:30.160
The second bit is the configuration, right?
00:05:30.319 --> 00:05:39.680
So when you're thinking about how the different pieces on a site have to talk to each other, you need to make sure that the configurations on those devices can play nice with each other.
00:05:39.839 --> 00:05:52.720
And that's actually a much harder problem than you would think because configuration has to sort of survive all the changes in in energy levels and all the all everything that's going on on that site, and the configs have to essentially address that.
00:05:52.879 --> 00:05:56.079
The third is is the monitoring, right?
00:05:56.240 --> 00:06:00.000
So how is the, you know, how what's the relationship look like?
00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:02.959
Like what's the map between all the different pieces?
00:06:03.120 --> 00:06:13.120
You know, this this thing is related to that thing, and of course the configs also make a difference between you know all the different combinations of things that that connect it you know impacts the config.
00:06:13.279 --> 00:06:16.000
And then over time, what happens to maintain that?
00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:27.279
So the a new pro a new charger gets added to a site, or you know, they decide to add solar to a site, or you know, they were dealing with a bus depot and they they had 20 buses and now they have 25.
00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:31.920
Okay, well, so they bought two more chargers to deal with the load, and now all of a sudden the entire site is different.
00:06:32.079 --> 00:06:34.959
So managing those four things, right?
00:06:35.120 --> 00:06:44.240
The the connectivity, the configuration, the monitoring, and the maintenance over time is all has to be solved simultaneously in order for an energy site to actually work really, really well.
00:06:44.399 --> 00:06:53.120
And so that's the the whole idea is that you know you you tackle all of that, and then the CPMS can can work with all the other things that are going on at a site.
00:06:53.279 --> 00:06:59.040
The the EMS that's governing the site, the best that's governing battery, they can all kind of talk to each other.
00:06:59.120 --> 00:07:03.600
And it really just simplifies the problem that it that energy sites have to work nice together.
00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:06.000
And again, this was the problem the company saw.
00:07:06.079 --> 00:07:10.319
And this, you know, we we basically spent two years building a solution that just does this.
00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:34.399
So for those of you who are familiar with Palantir, it's uh the the notion of the ontology layer that Palantir uses to sort of organize information is very much the same kind of approach that that we took at Voltra to understand what happens at an energy site and how to be able to manage it in a much more elegant, modern fashion that makes it much simpler for whoever the site operator is or the site builder is, you know, to build the site and then operate the site.
00:07:34.720 --> 00:07:35.120
Yeah.
00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:39.360
So our industry is, of course, acronym laden.
00:07:39.519 --> 00:07:48.959
And so just adding a little bit of a translation layer for the audience that may be listening and understood or or maybe didn't understand some of the things Michael was talking about.
00:07:49.040 --> 00:07:51.839
When we're talking about EMS, we're talking about energy management software.
00:07:52.000 --> 00:08:02.160
We're talking about best, we're talking about battery energy storage, we're talking about CPMS or CMS, those are synonymous terms that basically talk about the software managing the hardware.
00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:13.920
And so what Voltra is doing is bringing in all of these software stacks into a single pane of glass that helps understand okay, when the site was deployed, it didn't have a battery there supplemented.
00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:17.759
It was just grid connection, and maybe there was energy needed, offsets needed.
00:08:17.839 --> 00:08:22.480
And so there's been a battery energy solution or battery storage solution integrated in the site.
00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:27.040
And so Voltra's solution is bringing that into a single pane of glass and helping with that.
00:08:27.199 --> 00:08:29.120
You know, it's it's funny with charging.
00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:37.759
So, you know, not to not to speak for you, Michael, but I always try to add a translation layer because we we know what we're talking about when we're talking about CMS.
00:08:37.840 --> 00:08:46.799
But it's like one guest recently was talking about whenever he was coming into or getting an invitation into the space, the term was used EV, and he's like, that's great.
00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:47.279
I'm interested.
00:08:47.360 --> 00:08:48.480
What does EV stand for?
00:08:48.720 --> 00:08:52.480
So just adding the translation layer there for the audience.
00:08:53.039 --> 00:08:56.720
But uh, you know, chargers are the ones that get the most attention.
00:08:56.879 --> 00:08:58.320
That's where the focus is.
00:08:58.559 --> 00:09:01.039
Growth in our space, growth in charging sites.
00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:06.720
It's kind of always a bit anchored on what the charger is, what brand is it, what's the output, and how many are there.
00:09:06.799 --> 00:09:16.159
But you know, the market is is is growing and and it has had to outgrow kind of that focal point and and look at other things.
00:09:16.240 --> 00:09:19.200
And so growth is is shifted towards depots.
00:09:19.279 --> 00:09:25.600
We're seeing um, you know, multi-tenant sites where there is a retail component and a fleet component.
00:09:25.759 --> 00:09:37.679
So as growth transitions to depots and and fleets are electrifying, or maybe multi-family and workplace or integrating, charging, all of that is changing site conditions and site needs.
00:09:37.840 --> 00:09:52.080
And so from from just I'd like to get your comments on on what what is changing and what does this shift tell us about the direction of the market and the consequent need for a solution that brings all that into that single pane of glass.
00:09:52.159 --> 00:09:56.000
I know I said a lot at you, but I think you hopefully you're tracking with me there.
00:09:56.240 --> 00:09:56.399
Yeah.
00:09:56.639 --> 00:10:02.000
So I, you know, I think the the market, I guess the best way to put it is it's getting less sexy, right?
00:10:02.240 --> 00:10:13.519
So everybody talked about and thought about public charging, fast charging, you know, Nevi funding, you know, build the build the big sites with the you know, the really cool chargers and you know, people see it.
00:10:13.679 --> 00:10:16.879
You know, that was kind of like the the a lot of what people focused on.
00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:18.879
And it and it's still true to some extent.
00:10:19.120 --> 00:10:40.559
But, you know, a lot of where at least what we're seeing and and the people that we work with are seeing is this, you know, there's a lot more focus now on depots, on municipal fleets, kind of multifamilies really starting to continue to grow, workplace, destination, you know, the like the less sexy parts of the industry, but where people actually need the charging.
00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:45.440
Like they, you know, they they get to the office and they want to charge during the day so they have enough to go home.
00:10:45.600 --> 00:10:56.320
They you live in an in an apartment building and you know don't necessarily have deeded parking or or you know energy at all the way to their stall, so they might need you know, shared charging there.
00:10:56.480 --> 00:10:58.559
You know, how do you do you do you use submeter?
00:10:58.879 --> 00:11:00.559
How do you make sure they get built properly?
00:11:00.720 --> 00:11:03.440
Often it's not free, so you have to figure out who actually pays for it.
00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:10.480
You know, there's just all the kind of nitty-gritty of of integrating the the charging experience into the into daily life, right?
00:11:10.639 --> 00:11:14.559
That that appears to be where there's a lot of traction these days.
00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:24.960
So, you know, the there are specialists, I think, who really get the public charging bit, and and more and more and more of the build-out in public charging is is getting into a smaller and smaller group.
00:11:25.120 --> 00:11:31.919
But I think, you know, one of the things I said a couple of years ago that I thought I'd see we'd see in this industry is is much more specialization, right?
00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:35.120
Both on a geographic basis and on a type basis.
00:11:35.200 --> 00:11:36.960
And I think we're definitely starting to see that now.
00:11:37.279 --> 00:11:43.519
People who understand how really how to do L2, people really understand how to do workplace, people really understand how to do fleet and depot.
00:11:43.679 --> 00:11:53.840
Like everyone is really kind of getting narrower and narrower on their focus, you know, because at the end of the day, you know, you got to figure out how to be profitable, both on the vendor side and on the operator side.
00:11:54.000 --> 00:12:04.240
And so that that sort of relentless march to profitability is has really kind of you know ended the the first phase of, I think, the charging build-out, or maybe you call it the second phase.
00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:13.440
And we're now kind of getting into the third phase, you know, which is uh is a much more pragmatic, you know, kind of steely-eyed view of of how you build out, you know, the charging ecosystem.
00:12:14.240 --> 00:12:17.519
I think that's a good synopsis of of the trajectory.
00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:21.919
It's it was growth at all costs, then moving towards profitability.
00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:24.480
I think you you you mentioned profitability today.
00:12:24.559 --> 00:12:27.519
Uh, we've seen the stringencies around CapEx.
00:12:27.679 --> 00:12:36.799
We uh just today I was talking to an operator who has been successful with NEVI deployments, but as an organization and strategically they are looking at pivoting away from that.
00:12:36.960 --> 00:12:48.000
Even though NEVI has been successful for them, they're they're they're looking other places, and NEVI may not be a part of their strategy moving forward just because their plans are a little bit different and aligned in a different direction.
00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:54.000
And and obviously they've got a charging program that is not dependent on subsidies to even get forward.
00:12:54.080 --> 00:13:04.240
But profitability is is one of the a path to profitability or a clear line around it is is what's matters most, is what matters most to operators today.
00:13:04.399 --> 00:13:18.799
And so in your conversations, both at a macro level in the industry or or with your clients, how much how much are you seeing that conver conversation shifting to away from like when can we get the chargers in to how are we going to efficiently operate this site?
00:13:19.200 --> 00:13:19.360
Yeah.
00:13:19.440 --> 00:13:20.799
I mean, you've hit the nail on the head.
00:13:20.879 --> 00:13:25.360
I mean, the problem is that there's there's just not enough money to go around, right?
00:13:25.519 --> 00:13:34.000
When you when you look at the gross margin on electricity, you know, there's the the that that that amount of money is all you really have to play with when all is said and done.
00:13:34.240 --> 00:13:39.039
And in the US, that margin is actually lower than it is in in a lot of markets.
00:13:39.200 --> 00:13:53.279
And so, you know, when someone looks at their PL and looks at all those costs below the line, they look at sales, marketing, you know, technology, you know, GNA, all the things that they have to spend and cover on a monthly basis and realize I just don't have a lot of room.
00:13:53.360 --> 00:14:00.639
I I have got to figure out how to grind down the cost side because I can't necessarily assume that I can grow out of it, right?
00:14:00.799 --> 00:14:04.559
To to spread those costs in a way that you know will eventually lead to profitability.
00:14:04.720 --> 00:14:11.759
So you you you see, you know, the big players in particular, and and really everybody you talk to is just looking at how can I take another point out of this?
00:14:11.840 --> 00:14:13.759
How can I take 50 basis points out of here?
00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:15.200
How do I cut my marketing there?
00:14:15.360 --> 00:14:17.120
How do I cut my technology costs there?
00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:22.720
You know, everybody's just you know understanding like they they need to operate this, they need to figure out how to run this as a business.
00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:28.480
And there's not a lot of extra money, you know, you know, venture or government or wherever it's gonna come from.
00:14:28.639 --> 00:14:32.240
If that's not coming in to bail you out, you know, you're gonna have to find a way to do it yourself.
00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:35.840
And and that's you know, very much about efficiency, you know.
00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:41.600
And and I'll I'll say when you talk to folks in Europe, you know, they they kind of went through this process a few years ago.
00:14:41.759 --> 00:14:49.200
And so the the people that are left, the operators that are left in Europe, almost, you know, every just about every single one of them, that's how they work at the world.
00:14:49.279 --> 00:14:52.240
They they look at a site and try to figure out how it's gonna pencil out.
00:14:52.399 --> 00:14:55.120
You know, they don't look at subsidies, they don't look at how it's gonna be funded.
00:14:55.200 --> 00:15:05.840
Or I mean they do, but at the end of the day, it's gotta the the site has to work with you know expected volume, expected traffic, you know, the margin margin on sale, how much throughput you're gonna get.
00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:08.080
And if they can't make it pencil out, they'll walk away.
00:15:08.240 --> 00:15:23.679
You know, and so what you end up finding is people are are finding really, really creative real estate deals to get, you know, poor pieces of land that they feel like they can figure out a way to drive traffic to that site, you know, and and and improve profitability just because their their carrying costs end up being lower.
00:15:25.039 --> 00:15:31.759
It's equally at ChemPower, everything starts with you.
00:15:32.960 --> 00:15:38.000
We design solutions that are simple to install and effortless to use.
00:15:38.320 --> 00:15:41.919
Our team is here to make your journey seamless.
00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:47.039
From engineering and sales to hands-on service in the field.
00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:49.919
Your success drives ours.
00:15:50.399 --> 00:15:59.360
Our solutions are built for every segment of mobility, charging any vehicle, anywhere.
00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:02.720
For every customer.
00:16:10.960 --> 00:16:18.559
Obviously, Bulltra was pivoting away from CMS just solely as a solution, a market solution or a mark market offering.
00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:23.679
Because, you know, and maybe this is a point that you you and I had had had a conversation offline.
00:16:23.840 --> 00:16:30.000
Maybe you made this offline about kind of the early or easy problems on the front end being being already kind of solved for.
00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:48.000
And so software is in the, you know, the OCPI, the OCCP, the the resetting of faults, the standard kind of table stakes around the CMS that addresses firmware updates or software patches, et cetera, those are are increasingly manageable remotely.
00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:53.039
But there are some harder operational problems that the industry has got to address.
00:16:53.200 --> 00:16:59.759
Um what what are what are some of those that you've observed and what what are what are some of the next corners we need to take or curves?
00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:07.519
Yeah, well, you know, the again, I I think that it's it's key to take away that it the easy stuff is fixed, right?
00:17:08.240 --> 00:17:15.759
Now one's kind of realized like 70% of what typically goes wrong, I can do a soft reset or a hard reset, and it's probably gonna fix things.
00:17:15.920 --> 00:17:22.480
You know, if it's uh if it's something that's physically wrong with the site, you know, software, no amount of software is gonna fix that.
00:17:22.559 --> 00:17:28.559
You're gonna have to roll a truck, someone's gonna have to go take a look, you know, open up the, take a look at the panel, open up the box and see what's going on.
00:17:28.799 --> 00:17:48.880
But, you know, the the the new kind of paths that are coming down in terms of like V to G and V to H and plug-in charge, you know, kind of juggling all the interoperability and the software interaction with with other entities, you know, is starting is also stressing organizations because a lot of them were really just built to operate, right?
00:17:48.960 --> 00:17:56.400
They're they w they don't have you know big software departments to to handle these things, but they have to figure out how to play in the ecosystem really, really well.
00:17:56.640 --> 00:18:05.119
Because you have to have the same experience as you have, you know, honestly, everyone's got to think about, you know, what what's Tesla doing and how do I compete with that?
00:18:05.200 --> 00:18:07.839
Because that's sort of the gold standard in terms of customer experience.
00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:16.640
And so, you know, they you you have to have the uptime, you have to have visibility, you have to have findability, all those things have to be checked off, you know, if if you want to survive over the long run.
00:18:16.720 --> 00:18:22.880
And so I think this is part of why, again, you you see specialization because people are trying to find niches where it really works.
00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:24.480
Yeah, I agree.
00:18:24.720 --> 00:18:24.880
Yeah.
00:18:25.039 --> 00:18:32.000
So it's you know, it's just uh the just the nature is is changing because you also just can't throw people at problems, right?
00:18:32.079 --> 00:18:34.079
You have to you have to lean into the technology.
00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:47.599
You have to learn like understand how to use roaming effectively and work with the MSPs and and you know work with the the the plug and charge networks and the D, you know, the PKI networks, just like get the technology right, but try to do it like really fast and easy.
00:18:47.759 --> 00:18:53.119
Work with the right CPMS who can get you there, you know, so that you're not you're enabled and you're really just focused on operations.
00:18:53.440 --> 00:18:53.839
Yeah.
00:18:54.160 --> 00:19:05.119
Well well said, and and leaning into the technology, I'd I'd like uh some to to get some comments from you around AI and even autonomous operation here, because you know, you you made a valid point.
00:19:05.279 --> 00:19:11.759
It's not just throwing people at at something to try to figure it out, it's leveraging the technology to do it in the right way.
00:19:11.839 --> 00:19:18.079
And we we've you know, I think the specialization that you've mentioned a couple times here, I think is key.
00:19:18.400 --> 00:19:25.440
We've seen companies struggle under the weight of what should have been a good thing, and and by that I mean vertical integration.
00:19:25.599 --> 00:19:30.319
But at the same time, it they were doing really well, maybe on one hand and not so well on the other.
00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:34.559
And maybe one area of the business was a cost center while the other had some profitability.
00:19:34.720 --> 00:19:42.319
And so I think zero in on that specialization and and basically driving in the lane that's right for you is makes the most sense.
00:19:42.480 --> 00:19:52.720
And so to your comments around the technology and and specifically AI, how it's it's changing infrastructure operations and at at rates that maybe we're not even aware.
00:19:52.880 --> 00:20:00.240
I mean, there's you know, there's obviously a lot of hype around AI, but there's also real utility there, real operational value.
00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:01.920
And so what are you seeing?
00:20:02.160 --> 00:20:06.799
Where do you see AI impacting charging infrastructure operations today?
00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:08.319
Is it diagnosis?
00:20:08.559 --> 00:20:09.680
Is it troubleshooting?
00:20:09.759 --> 00:20:10.400
What's that look like?
00:20:10.720 --> 00:20:13.839
Well, we could we could probably spend an hour just talking about this topic.
00:20:14.160 --> 00:20:14.720
I bet we could.
00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:18.240
But it's hard to summarize it in, you know, in a in a in a short period of time.
00:20:18.400 --> 00:20:42.160
But yeah, I think the the first takeaway is the the technology, the the AI technology itself is evolving so fast and becoming so powerful so quickly that unless you're really working with it on a daily basis and and understand just how good it is at figuring things out for you, you you you it's hard to even visualize how how much it could transform operations.
00:20:42.400 --> 00:21:03.039
And so, you know, when you look at pointing a, you know, a clawed CLI against an MCP server to understand what's going on in operations and asking it for, you know, to do investigation on your behalf or or pull metrics out to do a quick to do a quick report, you start to suddenly realize, wow, I I I don't actually need to go into the software anymore.
00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:06.480
I can just do all of this through through my AI interface.
00:21:06.559 --> 00:21:21.599
And it just the the whole mindset about developing product and and buying software and interacting with that software to manage your operations starts to kind of fall away because you can just kind of do all of it directly, you know, through an interface, an AI interface that will do pretty much anything you ask it to do.
00:21:21.759 --> 00:21:26.799
And, you know, for someone who hasn't really done this yet, listening, it's gonna sound very odd.
00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:28.720
Like that that doesn't make any sense to me.
00:21:28.799 --> 00:21:45.119
But once you live in it for a while, you realize like, wow, I can I can make this thing sing and dance and do whatever I want and build reports on the fly and build dashboards in 10 minutes, you know, from nothing, and just really understand and zero in on you know how to operate this business better.
00:21:45.200 --> 00:21:59.759
And you can you can start almost like building your own applications, like you, you're you're still leveraging this DPMS and EMS, but you can start giving it much more direct, you know, kind of guidance in terms of what you want to accomplish or pull the information out that may not be presented in the way you want it, but it will tell you.
00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:03.839
you know but you can pull it out and and and access it because the data is there.
00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:08.480
You're just you know you're you're just gonna structure it in a different way and let AI figure figure it out for you.
00:22:08.720 --> 00:22:13.119
So you know suddenly you know you're building agents to to monitor for things.
00:22:13.200 --> 00:22:16.559
You don't have to rely on reporter to to monitor and automate for you.
00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:20.720
You can just there's so much at your disposal with the tools that are out there today.
00:22:20.880 --> 00:22:22.880
You know the the world changed what is it now?
00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:25.119
I guess nine months ago, 10 months ago, right?
00:22:25.279 --> 00:22:26.880
When Cloud Code came out.
00:22:27.119 --> 00:22:33.519
And you you just have to lean into it at this point to to stay up with just how fast everything is changing.
00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:49.200
And and this is an opportunity also for for the operators that are are looking to step, you know, cut overhead looking for ways to repurpose people in other areas within the organization and and and and address some of this busy work.
00:22:49.440 --> 00:23:17.519
Most CMM as platforms, they've already been doing the monitoring and the alerting and all of that but but the the frontier we're at right now and and and beyond is that like you said the the AI agents that can be built in to identify the issues and diagnose root cause and all of this is solved is being solved for in the background in and really it's pointing us towards the the uptime that we're looking for and and how a site is is supported from a reliability standpoint.
00:23:17.680 --> 00:23:23.680
So the autonomy attached to the operations by way of the unlock that AI offers is is significant.
00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:25.440
And so appreciate those comments.
00:23:25.680 --> 00:23:32.319
Obviously as a service company Field Advantage is is is concerned on on the truck rolls that are are going to continue.
00:23:32.480 --> 00:23:43.759
We don't we're not saying the truck rolls are are going away by any means but there is a narrative and this is kind of the other side of the coin of our conversation is that AI and software is is going to automate everything.
00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:47.039
It's going to be perfect and yeah you don't need a service company anymore.
00:23:47.119 --> 00:23:57.759
But uh physical infrastructure breaks uh the friction points on the charger the screens the credit card readers the cables cable management all of that that fails or hardware failures or software failures.
00:23:57.839 --> 00:24:19.039
So instead of you know being a lud a Ludite reacting you know in a knee-jerk response to what AI is doing or not doing what what do you for those listening what do you what do you what would your comments be uh for field operations and truck roles that that are a critical layer and and and how software is not replacing that but supplementing and and and maybe even making those truck rolls smarter.
00:24:19.200 --> 00:25:24.079
What's that what's that what's your comments around yeah I I mean truck rolls don't go away by by any means like that and that you know in many ways this is actually part of the the the Voltra narrative which is okay we're trying to simplify the fit you know the physical world right simplify the management of the of the physical world because software is becoming so much easier software is becoming so much faster to develop and so much more adaptable the you know the the the focus and the emphasis goes back to the things that the physical things the things that break the things that need replacement the things that someone has to come in and check on or you know so the that the importance of understanding what you can do with software versus what you you need to have an appropriate level of of of support for in the physical world becomes very very important because you're probably going to drive costs down and you're gonna drive you know impact down on the software side but the physical stuff is going to be is going to continue is actually going to take up a larger and larger percentage of your of your focus and your emphasis and your and your expense because it isn't something you can sort of hand wave away with software, right?
00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:30.400
It's so you you you have to become more and more expert at understanding how to deal with the physical side of things.
00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:39.599
You know, maybe down the road that's that's you know evolving your your hardware in a way to try to reduce the number of Truck roles but again they're not going to go away.
00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:47.200
Stuff's gonna break people someone's gonna drive too close and you know bang into it you know someone's gonna cut a cable here and there.
00:25:47.279 --> 00:25:50.240
It's just those things are are just you know part of the business.
00:25:50.400 --> 00:25:57.680
And if anything as a percent of your total budget you you have to start allocating more and more because those are things you just can't make go with right that's right.
00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:16.480
It's important call out an allocation towards OM you know it's it's it's on the table now, but there was a a period early on where it was just focused on getting the chargers in and yeah the state's paying this amount or the you know there's a utility fund paying this amount or or so you know whatever it may look like.
00:26:16.960 --> 00:26:31.200
So we're I know we had commentary earlier on in in the conversation about you know the the multi-tiered solutions that are offered or are needed at a site in the you know the stack of of different components, uh battery energy.
00:26:31.440 --> 00:26:44.559
We're we're seeing more batteries paired with charging infrastructure and that's obviously for demand charges, mitigating that arbitrage, et cetera but uh where where are you seeing battery economics work today in real time?
00:26:44.720 --> 00:26:50.400
And uh what do people maybe misunderstand about the value of offsetting just strictly grid connection?
00:26:50.640 --> 00:26:50.799
Right.
00:26:51.039 --> 00:27:03.359
So battery is is a is a really interesting topic just because it's it's evolved so much and costs have come down so quickly and you know there's there's just much more access to battery than there was even a couple of years ago.
00:27:03.440 --> 00:27:03.599
Right.
00:27:03.680 --> 00:27:12.160
You're starting to see a lot more of the the hardware manufacturers building battery into the the the chassis themselves and actually including onboard battery.
00:27:12.400 --> 00:27:21.119
You have battery that's that's more separate on site, which is is probably more efficient overall because you're using the battery across multiple chargers and across multiple sessions.
00:27:21.279 --> 00:27:46.559
And what it does is you know it does it does a whole bunch of things right lets you do rate arbitrage you know lets you kind of participate more aggressively in demand response you know it you're really trying to focus on reducing demand charge you know and you can start getting into the you know the whole VPP you know world, you know, the the virtual power plant type stuff where you start looking at ways to you know expose capacity back to the grid, which the utilities are all desperate for right now, right?
00:27:46.640 --> 00:27:51.920
To to figure out how to how to mitigate some of the the load you know increase that's coming on.
00:27:52.240 --> 00:28:00.640
But one of the things I think that people have to understand about battery is that the economics makes sense best when it's charging and discharging every day.
00:28:07.200 --> 00:28:20.960
If you're in an area with a lot of solar, maybe there's a point in the middle of the day with sudden where everything gets pretty cheap because there's lots of excess solar energy coming in, grab it all then five o'clock rolls around eight o'clock, sun starts to go down, you know, batteries come come on a lot more aggressively.
00:28:21.119 --> 00:28:31.599
You know that charge discharge cycle that that 365 days a year is is where you you start to really make money or or offset cost and the economics start to make a lot more sense.
00:28:31.839 --> 00:28:42.559
And so as in a as a in the EV charging world you have to like think about how how is battery going to be like an equal partner to chargers on a given site.
00:28:42.720 --> 00:29:02.319
And how did how does my economic model change when I'm really balancing not just charging revenue but all the value that a battery can generate both in terms of cost savings and revenue from the utilities you know when you're talking about some of the aggregation and demand response type of revenue you can get or credits you can get from the utility.
00:29:02.480 --> 00:29:04.240
So the math also changed.
00:29:04.400 --> 00:29:14.559
I mean and it you know anyone who's really spent any time looking at the financial statements for Tesla knows that a huge chunk of their profitability for EV charging actually is from carbon credits.
00:29:14.640 --> 00:29:16.079
It's not actually from operations.
00:29:16.240 --> 00:29:31.039
So battery kind of helps you is is like another example of that where the where the the EV charging in and of itself may continue to be a lost leader, but you might be able to actually offset that and then some with understanding the economics of battery and how it fits in with everything.
00:29:31.200 --> 00:29:33.359
And so you need an energy management system.
00:29:33.519 --> 00:29:47.680
You need you know you need orchestration across the the different hard groups of hardware on a site you know and that's that's honestly what Voltra kind of sees and saw saw coming and really focused on how do we make that orchestration a lot simpler?
00:29:47.839 --> 00:30:15.759
How do we take a lot of the the difficulty in connecting and maintaining those connections and having the right configurations at a on a product by product level you know be not a headache and something you have to manage and and everything today in in a lot of places is like hand done and it's in an Excel spreadsheet or you know someone's got it in a you know they they did it once and they just and they and they handed it off and they walked away and then six months later everything's you know falling apart because all the configurations and are are no longer accurate.
00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:34.480
So dealing with that whole problem and making it so that you can manage battery and and actually manage energy appropriately is really that that's the optimization problem that everybody is is starting to to recognize like I would be really surprised to see any public charging that doesn't have battery you know six months now or nine months from now.
00:30:34.559 --> 00:30:46.960
I mean there's obviously things going on the ground that started a while ago but everything new, you know, just I I can't imagine how the economics don't work without you know a good a good chunk of of battery there to change the economics of the site.
00:30:47.200 --> 00:30:47.359
Yeah.
00:30:47.599 --> 00:31:24.880
And to those comments we're seeing operators public charging operators make announcements of sites with battery because they've seen the need and and you know whether you're looking at a a public charging site in a retail context or you're looking at fleets and depots, this the arbitrage around energy, the demand charge mitigation, dynamic load management, all of this site level orchestration that you've you've mentioned, those have become table stakes and and fleets and depots, they're having to work through all of that because they've got this this need to support their their fleet and they've got the power constraints that that are required to do that.
00:31:25.039 --> 00:31:52.160
But beyond beyond keeping load limits within beyond keeping the load within limits what uh how are systems intelligent prioritizing where the power goes based on the on the vehicle need or how important is that I guess you could say so you've I guess to simplify you've got a you've got a fleet with a with a normal operating profile and the vehicles are parked during the day and maybe they're out at you know a certain like a school bus, maybe it's it's parked during the middle of the day but it's out in the morning, out in the afternoon.
00:31:52.319 --> 00:31:55.599
There's a power allocation that's available for that at a grid level.
00:31:55.759 --> 00:32:05.200
And so all of that is hinges on dynamic load management and and and kind of that that single pane of glass that is seeing where that energy is at and how to move it around comments around that.
00:32:05.519 --> 00:32:11.759
Well yeah d again DLM is kind of like battery right again DLM is the acronym for dynamic load management.
00:32:11.920 --> 00:32:20.160
It's you you're you're going to see that everywhere like there's just there's probably almost no situation where you wouldn't expect to see that in a site.
00:32:20.319 --> 00:32:38.480
Depots in particular fleets in particular just because the the number of chargers and the num and the the amount of moving parts that have to be managed and so what what that does for you is you helps you optimize the state of charge for when's when when a vehicle has to be off the off out of the depot and and back on the road.
00:32:38.640 --> 00:32:48.160
And so you really have to you don't want to have someone running around you know unplugging a bus and moving it to a different spot that has a you know a higher power charger.
00:32:48.319 --> 00:33:00.799
You know you want to you want to be able to sort of manage things and take other ones down if you need to to ensure that all the current's getting into the ones that have to leave quickly or came in late with a low state of charge and you know they're that one's going to go back on on a route quickly.
00:33:07.039 --> 00:33:23.359
But the the the other part of this which you know is is not something that most people think about is that there's a lot more standards and regulations now about having to be able to to have physical cutoffs for room chargers if the load starts hit bumping up against the maximum, right?
00:33:23.599 --> 00:33:34.400
In Canada in particular, there's a lot of rules that are now going into place that you you you need to have much more aggressive hardware that that will do a shutoff if something is approaching a load limit.
00:33:34.559 --> 00:33:38.880
So you want DLM to be able to sort of manage to keep things below that level.
00:33:39.039 --> 00:33:54.640
So even in circumstances where you wouldn't have bothered with DLM in the past, you're kind of going to have to think about how do I use that in a, in a multifamily building because I have a I've I've got a a circuit that that can't can't go above a certain level, but I don't want it to cut off completely that's not ideal.
00:33:54.799 --> 00:34:02.480
But I can maybe manage it and keep it below so that you know it doesn't create havoc for the building management to go in and then figure out what do I do now that half my chargers are offline.
00:34:02.640 --> 00:34:09.760
And so that you know that that whole notion of the regulatory understanding of of how you manage EV chargers is starting to have an impact.
00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:14.320
And DLM is one of the more important aspects of how to deal how to how to address that.
00:34:14.480 --> 00:34:23.280
There's an even more kind of challenging element in that same topic which is you can't necessarily manage DLM entirely using cloud services, right?
00:34:23.360 --> 00:34:29.280
Because now you have to worry about SIM cards or whatever internet access you have that's controlling the profiles and the chargers.
00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:38.960
You know, again in Canada they're they're saying no you have to have local control so that if you lose connectivity, you know, the if if you lost connectivity under their rules, you'd probably have to shut the whole thing off.
00:34:39.039 --> 00:34:44.000
But now you want to be able to have local controllers and say, no, I I I can control this locally so it's not as big of an issue.
00:34:44.239 --> 00:34:46.239
You're almost certainly going to get to see that everywhere.
00:34:46.480 --> 00:35:12.320
So you know using using cloud software to manage DLM at on local circuits is probably going to move to a much more of a local control because that's much more aligned with how the grid operators and and really the people who who have been living and breathing you know the energy grid for you know the last hundred years, how they think in terms of the resiliency that you need and being able to island sites that are that are problematic and cut them off from you know before they have an impact on the rest of the grid.
00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:17.599
So it's one of those things like two months from now, I'll bet you my answer is probably going to be different.
00:35:17.840 --> 00:35:44.960
Just it's the way that the we're we're kind of seeing these things start to change as people are understanding how to EV chargers and honestly data centers, because that's a whole nother topic, you know, very important for the grid but it the kind of things that that data centers do to grid loads you know are starting to trickle down into other parts of the grid because they're realizing what an impact some of these some of these you know sudden increases and decreases in and draw can have on the rest of the grid, you know, particularly now that that people aren't aren't can't build as much.
00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:46.239
And I did leave a topic out.
00:35:46.320 --> 00:35:55.119
So that actually there was one other thing I wanted to say on this was you know a lot of the utilities understand that deal that you know they can't give you as much power as you want.
00:35:55.199 --> 00:35:59.039
So the notion of of flexible interconnects is becoming much more accepted.
00:35:59.280 --> 00:36:07.360
And DLM is is absolutely necessary for that right you need a draw of X and they can only give you X minus 200.
00:36:07.519 --> 00:36:21.360
So for the 360 days a year you can do up to X, but for those five days a year where they know they have to you know they're gonna have to draw you down, you need to be able to prove that you're gonna stay below that limit you know and that's how you get the interconnect to begin with.
00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:34.000
And DLM is is the mechanism by which you can ensure that so PGE does that in California you strip you if you if you look at what the utilities are are putting out there that notion of flexible interconnects is probably going to be pretty widespread three years from now.
00:36:34.159 --> 00:36:47.440
And so you you need to embrace and lean into DLM and and what it takes to enable that again probably at the at the hardware level the local level in order to to convince the utilities that yes, you know, flexible interconnect works for us.
00:36:48.000 --> 00:37:03.599
That's that's very interesting insights that you just shared there, Michael, especially with the you know the tieback to what what Canada is doing in terms of of setting in place measures for a site like if you're going to reach your your your maximum output there's got to be controls in place that you don't get that.
00:37:03.760 --> 00:37:09.760
And then of course other site level systems in place to control DLM dynamic load management.
00:37:09.920 --> 00:37:17.440
And and yet we've even seen so that you know at a legislative level basically mandating that you're operating these sites this is what you need to do.
00:37:17.679 --> 00:37:25.440
It's obviously protecting the the operator in a sense from a from an OPEC standpoint uh but also from grid constraint and and and grid management.
00:37:25.760 --> 00:37:47.679
Also interesting because I I think your your comments are interesting because we know that like utility programs and incentives around hardware rebates, you know purchasing hardware and or offsetting the cost of it whether deploying or just acquiring the hardware the feature of DLM is is been contingent on the the hardware itself having what is it open ADR I think that's the open ADR or something.
00:37:47.840 --> 00:37:58.719
I forget the actual nomenclature around the basically the feature of on the hardware where utility can can can maybe throttle back the hardware's output, derate the unit as a s as a sense.
00:37:58.880 --> 00:38:00.239
But that that would be interesting.
00:38:00.320 --> 00:38:11.519
I could see some PUCs doing something similar at some point in the future to what you what you alluded to as is possibly happening in Canada or is that happening in Canada or is that kind of what the trend is?
00:38:11.840 --> 00:38:14.559
No my understanding is there's actually legislation that's already passed.
00:38:14.639 --> 00:38:21.199
I'm not I'm not 100% certain whether it's in place or coming up soon but everybody we're talking to is is is playing for it right now.
00:38:21.760 --> 00:38:32.000
All the hardware vendors not not the charger vendors but the people who sell the other stuff into the sites are all spitting up their their offerings um to cover for that Canada.
00:38:32.239 --> 00:38:46.880
But what it what it's what it's pointing to is there's another there's another kind of evolution coming I think in in how behind the meter energy sites are are managed, which is you know in order to have that local control, you basically need software running locally.
00:38:47.039 --> 00:38:57.840
And so you're starting to to add controllers onto sites that can can run containerized software environments so that you can have local management of you know of these sites, right?
00:38:57.920 --> 00:39:10.800
So suddenly this whole notion of of infrastructure exposing infrastructure as software becomes even more important because you've got a local version running that wants to go to talk to everything, but you want to make sure that nothing goes wrong because otherwise the whole thing falls apart.
00:39:10.960 --> 00:39:20.719
So it has to be super stable and and very predictable in terms of that local Docker container running code can is talking everything and there's no points of failure.
00:39:20.880 --> 00:39:27.440
And again that's that's what we do is make sure that that every that all that that whole environment's going to work properly.
00:39:27.599 --> 00:39:49.039
And as more and more requirements come around around having that local control, you know, we're fairly sure you're just gonna see everything move off the cloud and into you know local local not again it's true local like instances of software running these these essentially connected microgrids like really really tiny microgrids that are almost like independently managed.
00:39:49.199 --> 00:40:04.800
So again the the the technology is evolving you know how it looks a couple years from now will will be probably different but you're gonna see more and more of this kind of evolution of the grid from what used to be a a hardware game to kind of this hybrid hardware software game.
00:40:05.119 --> 00:41:02.320
Yeah that's that's uh that's insightful I think um you know it may seem confusing uh to those that are thinking well you know we've all had this shift towards cloud and virtual power plants and everything virtualized and stuff but the point in the localization and and the site control is really as a way to mitigate connectivity issues at the at the broader site level it's connectivity it's you know the the the utilities all know that they it's grow the demand's growing faster than supply and everything they can do to try to squeeze a little extra performance out of every single essentially small microgrid in the world in in in the country you know everything behind a meter anything that's got a you know a bunch of different hardware in it you can think of as a connected microgrid you know if I can make it 5% more efficient across five million sites or 10 million sites, that basically deals with the entire demand problem we have for the next 10 or 15 years.
00:41:02.559 --> 00:41:12.639
So you know trying to find ways to slowly but surely make improvements so that we can live with what we have across all of these different locations, you know, that that's kind of what they're trying to do.
00:41:12.719 --> 00:41:17.760
Now EV charging sites are probably you know it's the second biggest problem for utilities after data centers, right?
00:41:17.920 --> 00:41:21.199
Because they tend to have these really big draw and need a whole bunch to get going.
00:41:21.360 --> 00:41:22.639
But then it's very up and down.
00:41:22.800 --> 00:41:28.960
Like a data center is pretty consistent, but you know EV charging is, you know can have peaks and values throughout the course of the day.
00:41:29.119 --> 00:41:46.320
And so the more you know more efficient and kind of ability there is to kind of live within their means in the EV charging world and maybe even reduce the draw by using battery, the happier the utilities are because then they can go focus on other things, you know, and stay and try to keep that demand from outstripping the supply.
00:41:46.719 --> 00:41:56.800
Well I know in response to one of my earlier questions you made you made a comment about how the answers could change you know six months from now and that's just uh the nature of our industry.
00:41:56.880 --> 00:42:11.920
But uh I'm just curious, you know, from a forward looking standpoint if we if maybe we're sitting down a a year from now when you look at the industry and the changes that are needed or maybe maybe it's need or maybe it's nice to have what could or should change the most?
00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:18.559
I mean is is it is the biggest shift need to be pointing you know all in towards AI or software automation.
00:42:18.719 --> 00:42:21.920
You know your comments around battery adoption are a good example.
00:42:22.400 --> 00:42:25.039
But you know where where could we go?
00:42:25.280 --> 00:42:26.960
Where should we go, I guess is the question.
00:42:27.280 --> 00:42:27.360
Right.
00:42:27.519 --> 00:42:34.480
You know I think in a perfect world, you know, and and I'll kind of keep it at EV charging and kind of like an charging ecosystem.
00:42:34.639 --> 00:42:35.840
You would have batteries everywhere.
00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:53.199
You would have something like solar, something that is a renewable but it's it's it's less about the being renewable as it is about you know not requiring the gridness being sort of behind the meter, you know, it's a it's a distributed energy resource on a site that helps reduce the load to the grid.
00:42:53.280 --> 00:43:05.920
You know, if everything had had some solar everything had a battery then a lot of things become more possible right and then you know if you talk to operators they're they're they're starting to get better at at juggling all those things.
00:43:06.159 --> 00:43:12.960
But you know the big thing again looking looking out a year or two is yeah AI is going to manage all this.
00:43:13.119 --> 00:43:25.519
Like we we might we might come back in a year and say yeah you know what we don't really have much to do because we just get up in the morning and you know log in and tell tell the AI what we want to do today and then we go play golf, right?
00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:34.960
Because it's so good and and it can sort of handle 99.9% of of all the downstream tasks of of what you're trying to accomplish that you know there's just just not much for us to do.
00:43:35.360 --> 00:43:38.719
I mean actually there'll still be stuff for you to do because again stuff's gonna break.
00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:40.800
Someone's gonna get in a truck and go fix it, right?
00:43:40.960 --> 00:43:54.320
But you know, again just just seeing how much and I hate to hit the same topic again and again but how much AI has changed everything in the last nine months, you know, just I just think about where we were in October before Clawed code got released and you know versus today.
00:43:54.400 --> 00:44:04.480
And I just kind of imagine like another year from now how much better it's gonna be and how much how much less we have to think about the detail work and how much more it can handle on our behalf.
00:44:04.719 --> 00:44:10.719
So I I think if we come back and re-record in a year, that's going to be the you know the number one thing that we see.
00:44:11.039 --> 00:44:11.360
Yeah.
00:44:11.679 --> 00:44:34.960
Agreed agreed Michael I appreciate you coming on Field Frequency for those that are listening and want to connect with you directly I know you're active on on LinkedIn but um of course we'll have uh in our show notes links to Voltra links to your LinkedIn but um what's uh what's the best way to connect with you Michael one of the good things about being an early uh employee at a company is you get your first name as your email so mine's pretty easy.
00:44:35.519 --> 00:44:38.239
Michael at Vultra.com is is how you get a hold of me.
00:44:38.320 --> 00:44:40.960
So you know I love connecting with people I love chatting with people.
00:44:41.039 --> 00:44:43.599
If you want to connect on LinkedIn would love to connect there.
00:44:43.679 --> 00:44:52.079
You know I'm a big part of what I do is is really talking to people and understanding the kind of challenges that they're faced with or the or the benefits that their companies can bring.
00:44:52.159 --> 00:44:56.159
You know so I love talking to partners I love talking to folks that are active in the ecosystem.
00:44:56.239 --> 00:45:02.960
You know I try to be active in in the organizations that are that are kind of guiding the industry forward and and I'll continue to do that.
00:45:03.039 --> 00:45:08.960
So would love to chat with folks you know don't feel like you're imposing on me just you know reach out and you know let's have a chat.
00:45:09.199 --> 00:45:10.880
Well thank you for coming on Field Frequency.
00:45:10.960 --> 00:45:15.760
It was a pleasure to have you thanks Jason this episode was produced and edited by the team at Autozi.
00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:20.880
To find out more visit autosy.co a u t o z y dotco
