Charging station management: what it includes and when to outsource

Whoever buys a charger usually thinks about the equipment: the power, the connector, the construction work. Once it's switched on, the other half appears. Someone needs to know whether it's working, help those who can't charge, decide how much to charge and check whether the money that came in matches the charges. That work is charging station management. This text shows what it includes, what to ask whoever offers the service and when it makes sense to hand it over.

What charging station management is

It's the routine that keeps the point selling charging every day. It starts where the construction work ends and has no end date. A well-installed charging station, in a good location, can still earn little if it goes offline for hours with no one knowing, if it charges the same price in the empty small hours and at peak queue time, or if the driver who has a problem can't find anyone to help.

It's worth separating two things that often get mixed up. The payment platform unlocks the charge and collects from the driver. Management decides and tracks the rest. A point can have the platform working very well and no management. A charging platform and management software do different jobs, and the Velquia blog separates the two: a charging platform or management software.

The six fronts of management

1. Monitoring

Knowing when the charger stops, preferably before the driver does. The charger talks to the operating platform through a communication protocol. The best known is OCPP, which the Open Charge Alliance, the body that maintains it, describes as the global open protocol between chargers and management systems. It's through this channel that the equipment's status and error warnings arrive. Monitoring is having someone, or an alert, watching that channel every day, including on weekends.

2. Maintenance

Preventive, which prevents the stoppage, and corrective, which solves the stoppage that came anyway. Management defines who does each one, how quickly, and who pays for the part. The routine is in charging station maintenance.

3. Driver support

The driver who can't start the charge wants to talk to someone right then, and charging has no business hours. If the contact they find is the establishment's, whoever answers is someone on your team, who generally can't resolve it. Management defines the channel, the support hours and what to do for each common problem.

4. Price and hours

Under ANEEL, whoever sells charging sets their own price: the activity is free, with freely negotiated prices (ANEEL's page on electric vehicles). Freedom of price calls for judgment. Management tracks the cost of the kWh, the charging stations around and the empty hours, and adjusts. The step by step is in how much to charge at a charging station.

5. Energy cost

Every kWh sold was bought beforehand, and the difference is the margin. Reviewing the electricity bill's rate plan and studying energy credits from distributed generation, provided for in Law 14,300/2022, are two ways to lower that cost. At our points we use energy credits from solar generation, with a cost per kWh lower than the utility's tariff.

6. Numbers and payout

Sessions per day, kWh per session, hours offline, revenue and the payout from the payment method. Management checks whether what came in matches the month's sessions and turns those numbers into decisions. Without this, the owner discovers the point is doing badly from the bank statement, weeks later. The formula that links these numbers to the result is in how much a charging station earns.

On your own or with a management company

Front	Operating on your own	With a management company
Stopped charger	You find out through the driver or the bank statement	Platform alert and a team that acts
Driver with a problem	Calls the establishment	Calls the management company
Price	Set once, reviewed when there's spare time	Adjusted with usage and regional data
Energy	The tariff that came with the property	Cost studied for the point
Payout	Checked by hand, when it's checked	Reconciled every month
Your team's work	The point's day to day	Reading the report

Operating on your own works, and many people start that way. What weighs is time. Each front above is small in a day and large in a month, and the charger is usually one more line on the list of someone who has another business to run.

Signs that it's worth outsourcing

• You learned about a stoppage from the driver, not from an alert.
• The price per kWh has been the same since the opening.
• The establishment's phone gets calls about the charger.
• No one can say how many hours the point was offline last month.
• The payout arrives and no one checks it session by session.
• The point has little use and you don't know why. The most common causes are in a charging station with little use.

What to ask a management company

• Monitoring: how it finds out the charger has stopped, and how long it takes to act.
• Support: who serves the driver, through which channel and at what hours.
• Maintenance: who does the preventive and corrective work, and who pays for the part.
• Price: how it's set and how often it's reviewed.
• Payout: how it's calculated and whether you can check it session by session.
• Report: what comes in it and how often.
• Equipment: whether your charger works with its platform. This depends on the model and the configuration, and needs to be checked case by case.
• Contract: term, exit and who keeps the point's registration and the session history.

How we do it at Elektro Charge

In Elektro Charge's charging station management, your point enters the same platform on which we operate our network, where there have already been more than 4,300 charges and more than 100,000 kWh delivered. Each front above has an owner:

• Site study: price and hours adjusted by your charger's usage data.
• AI monitoring: the platform warns when a charger stops or when something departs from the standard.
• Operation and support: the same team that serves our points, maintenance with partners and 24-hour driver support.
• Competition in the region: occupancy by day and time, charges and peak times of the charging stations around.
• Cheaper energy: the path of solar energy credits, studied for your point.
• Checked payout: reconciled with the payment operator and calculated every month, with your point's report.

It starts with a conversation and the site study. Term, conditions and what belongs to each side are agreed beforehand, in writing.