By: Hilary Polis and Hannah Merriam

Most utility EV load management programs and technology solutions currently focus on single-family residential customers. However, there is a significant opportunity brewing in the nonresidential sectorwhere charging at commercial facilities and with fleets generally results in higher demand and places more strain on our already stressed grid. This is especially true for medium-duty and heavy-duty charging. Effective commercial load management, a term we use here to refer to fleet, public, commercial, and other charging loads beyond the single-family residential context, will help us overcome major challenges in deploying EV charging infrastructure, such as costly grid upgrades needed to handle charging demands and delays in energizing chargers. The rapid growth in electricity demand for data centers and the associated congestion they create on the grid have only accelerated utility interest in managing new large loads, including commercial EV charging.

Opinion Dynamics has been partnering with utilities to help them develop strategies for bringing EV load management solutions to their commercial customers. Our approach involves analyzing the EV charging load shapes for commercial customers to identify which customers have loads to shift, having conversations with these customers to understand their practical limitations, and characterizing the landscape of existing solutions to manage their EV load. This collaborative process aims to leverage commercial load management to foster a more sustainable energy future, but what exactly does that entail?

What is Commercial and Fleet Load Management?

When most people envision a typical managed charging program today, they think of hundreds or thousands of residential vehicles that a utility can manage remotely via vehicle telematics or the charger. I often hear the question, What would a commercial managed charging program even look like?

Utilities and solutions providers employ a range of different strategies, from simple to sophisticated, to help commercial customers manage their load. In the initial stages, these strategies include customer outreach and providing information. Many fleet managers lack a background in EV charging or energy, and only start to focus on load management after receiving their first electricity bill post-electrification. Providing information about the benefits of load management through fleet electrification assessments for those that have yet to electrify, and summaries of charger usage and potential bill savings associated with shifting load for those that have installed charging, can be a good starting point for engaging customers.

Common load management strategies for commercial customers that have installed charging include rates, demand charges, and passive load control options like off-peak charging incentives. Additionally, utilities and solution providers are beginning to pilot active load control programs for fleet vehicles. As commercial customers tend to be more risk-averse, it is important that these strategies initially focus on providing carrots instead of sticks.

While load management is commonly conceptualized as a process that begins once customer-sided devices are connected to the grid, I think a critical element of commercial load management is using a combination of technologies and incentive strategies to help ensure customers can get their EV chargers connected to the grid in the first place, especially in areas where there are grid constraints. Flexible service connections are arrangements between customers and their utility to install charging capacity above the capacity available to the site without a grid upgrade, and in exchange, the site agrees to optimize the magnitude and timing of their charging in response to grid conditions. This type of solution is a game-changer for sites that want to install charging but face grid capacity constraints for a small percentage of hours of the year. Several utilities are starting to pilot pathways for customers to complete flexible service connections for EV charging. A few are also providing incentives for load management software and hardware that can react to grid signals to dynamically monitor and manage charging so that the charging demand at the site never exceeds the capacity available on the local grid. Batteries co-located with chargers and new charger technologies that have batteries embedded are other options to power charging when the grid is constrained.

What have we learned so far?

The TLDR: Commercial EV load management is nuanced, and we need to tread carefully.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Commercial customers exhibit unique EV charging load management needs, capabilities, opportunities, and motivations. As a result, their baseline charging patterns and average load curves differ and may or may not coincide with the peak period on the distribution or bulk systems. Unsurprisingly, we see variations in charging patterns across customer segments, but what has been quite intriguing is that we also often see quite a bit of variation in charging patterns across sites within a specific customer segment. When it is available, utilities and solutions providers may benefit from looking at the charging data for individual customers to determine load shift opportunities, rather than assuming all customers of a certain type will have the same potential.

We need to think about BOTH technical potential AND individual site constraints. To identify sites that are a good fit for EV load management, we take a two-step approach: first, analyzing load curves to determine if there is load to shift, and second, engaging with customers to understand their charging needs and demand flexibility. Workplaces are a key segment for commercial charging. Still, we often see minimal charging that occurs on peak for locations with peak periods in the evening because employees have already gone home. Further, if these sites offer charging as an employee benefit, they may face backlash if access is restricted. On the other hand, gas stations and public charging at retail locations tend to have the greatest load when people are out and about in the early afternoon and evening. We also see more direct current fast chargers (DCFCs), at these sites, meaning they often have considerable coincident peak loads. In other words, they do have the load to shift. However, these charging stations aim to increase access to EV charging and reduce range anxiety. If these chargers aren’t reliably available or users unknowingly pay higher rates during certain periods, it could undermine the goal of increasing EV adoption. At this stage, talking directly to representative customers to understand their charging needs and limitations is important for understanding the full picture of the load management opportunity at customers’ sites.

Deliberate, Multi-solution Process: Based on our research, we believe the best way forward is for utilities to offer a range of different EV load management solutions that address the needs of customers with various business operations and charging requirements, rather than creating a single “Commercial Managed Charging Program.” Utilities and solution providers should be deliberate about staging these strategies. Taking the time to directly engage with commercial customers through education and outreach, and connecting these customers with existing programs before creating EV-specific rates and incentives, offers an opportunity to ensure that any EV load management offerings match customer needs and capabilities.

What is the path forward for commercial load management?

Which customers should be eligible for commercial load management incentives? Some commercial customers may not have peak coincident load, another group may charge on Level 2, and have minimal grid impacts, and for others, maintaining normal operations will outweigh any sort of cost savings associated with load shift. Furthermore, in many locations with a high concentration of commercial customers, the bulk system and distribution system have different peak periods. In these situations, EV charging load and also load management solutions can have diverging impacts on the bulk system and distribution system. This highlights the importance of clearly identifying desired customer and grid/utility benefits from the outset so that the appropriate customers can be targeted. There is a lot to figure out regarding designing and marketing load management solutions, given that some customers will derive and provide substantially more value than others.

What is the role of the utility in delivering commercial load management solutions? Managing large EV charging loads often has such a large return on investment that commercial customers are willing to hire companies to help them through the process without utility support. While the appropriate roles of the utility and private sector have yet to be defined, strong coordination will be important either way. Utilities know when a customer triggers a grid upgrade for EV charging and who could benefit from private sector solutions to manage load. Also, utilities could play an important role in providing support for nonprofits, multifamily properties, and other organizations that might not be able to afford technical expertise on their own.

EV-specific or whole building? EV chargers are not always installed on a dedicated meter at commercial sites. Utilities that run residential managed charging programs commonly work with an aggregator that provides charging data for participants from multiple chargers and vehicle OEMs. The aggregator model is in the early pilot stages for commercial and fleet segments. Obtaining reliable sources of charging data remains a challenge for running EV-specific nonresidential programs, raising the question, does it make sense to integrate customers with significant EV loads into commercial whole-building load management programs, where site-level AMI data can be used for rates or settlements?

The rise of commercial and fleet loads in many ways highlights some of the biggest challenges in our energy system today: grid congestion, long energization queues, an aging grid that needs upgrades, and associated affordability challenges. Load management solutions in this space are still emerging, but I am excited about the potential they offer for technological innovation, customer bill savings, avoided upgrade costs, and associated downward pressure on rates.

You can follow along for more insights into EV load management beyond single-family residential settings:

Hilary Polis discussed the Distribution-Optimized EV Managed Charging to Enhance Grid Flexibility Project with Orange & Rockland Utilities and WeaveGrid in her presentation “Approaches and Best Practices for Evaluating New Managed Charging Applications” at Distributech 2025.

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