Load balancing
EV charger load balancing
Most charging schemes are capped by the connection, not the budget.
The real limit
More chargers on the supply you already have
A site can usually run far more chargers than its grid connection appears to allow. The limit comes from a theoretical maximum in which every charger draws full power at once, a situation that never actually occurs. Load balancing sets the number by real measured demand instead.
The result is more charge points on the supply you already have, rather than a DNO reinforcement that frequently costs more than the chargers.
Where the decision is made
Decided on site, in seconds
Both LinkRay and SiteManager make the load balancing decision locally, on hardware at the site, not on a remote server. A LinkRay controller reads the site meter every second and can tell a charger to reduce power within a few seconds of a change in demand, all without a round trip to the cloud.
That matters because the connection problem that makes a fast decision necessary is often the same connection a cloud based system would need to reach its remote server. Deciding on site removes that dependency entirely, and it is also why charging keeps running safely through an internet outage rather than stopping, or running without control until the connection returns.
Any brand of charger
LinkRay and SiteManager are brand agnostic: they work with any OCPP compatible charger, regardless of manufacturer, and handle AC and DC on the same site. There is no need to standardise on one supplier to get load balancing, and no subscription for the load balancing function itself.
Reads the meter every second
Capacity is allocated from measured demand rather than a nameplate figure, so headroom that a theoretical maximum would have written off is available to the chargers that need it.
Beyond the grid connection
Most load balancing only sees one asset
Grid connection in, controller, chargers out. If a site also has solar generation or battery storage, a conventional controller cannot see either, so neither contributes.
That matters more each year. A site with a battery has stored energy that should reduce its grid dependency, and if the charging infrastructure cannot see it, it cannot use it.
LinkRay allocates across all of it: grid import, solar generation, stored energy and charger demand, as one decision rather than four separate ones.
Scaling up
One site, or sixty four
LinkRay is a local controller. It measures the site draw and shares what remains across the chargers, up to 100 charge points on a single monitoring point. It decides locally, with no cloud service in the loop.
SiteManager coordinates up to 64 LinkRay units. The trigger for needing it is usually site complexity rather than charger count: several transformers, several switchboards, or multiple monitoring points that all have to be respected at once.
Almost everyone starts with LinkRay. SiteManager is what you add when the site outgrows a single monitoring point.
Related load balancing options
On our own boards
Balancing between chargers
If your chargers are built on Versinetic electronics, BalanSea provides charger to charger load management in software, with no additional hardware.
This is different from LinkRay and SiteManager, which work with any brand: BalanSea is for the specific case where the chargers themselves already run on Versinetic hardware, balancing directly charger to charger with no separate controller needed.
For installers
Selling and installing LinkRay
Installers and integrators deploying LinkRay on live sites can join the LinkRay partner programme.
The partner programmeGet in touch
Tell us the site and the supply
Give us the connection limit and the charger count and we will tell you what the site will carry. You will hear from an engineer. See also G100 compliance and the Plus ES case study for an 800A site limit in practice.