Tricare provides Charging infrastructure to de-risk and accelerate the adoption of electric buses, trucks, and passenger vehicles by public and private fleets through its simple price-per-kms-driven model. Tricare provides a fully managed charging solution that enables authorities, OEMs and commercial fleets to deploy electric vehicles confidently and without hassles. Tricare handles all aspects of charging operations on behalf of fleet owners and are optimised for the lowest electricity costs. Electric bus charging infrastructure is a capital intensive and will have significant impact on the electrical network.

Key Considerations In Planning The Charging Infrastructure

  • Model, simulate and optimise charging strategy
  • Minimise capital and operational costs
  • Optimise number and type of chargers
  • Assess impact on existing electrical network
  • Evaluate onsite generation and storage options
  • Electric Vehicle Fleet Management Software – Bus/Heavy Vehicle like Trucks.

Reliable 24/7 connectivity is fundamental for a commercial operation of a network of chargers!

Connectivity of EV Chargers

To successfully run a commercial charging network in a dynamic environment it is crucial to connect EV chargers to the Internet.
Connectivity helps EV charging network operators to:

  • Remotely monitor and configure charge points
  • Service the equipment efficiently and with minimal operational effort
  • Increase charger uptime and the reliability of their charging network
  • Build a scalable and flexible charging infrastructure
  • Minimize investments in IT Infrastructure & Backend Software
  • Up-to-date charging infrastructure with software updates
  • Support EV drivers in case they have issues
  • Adapt business and pricing models over time

Digital integration of an ABB EV charger

TriCare uses ABB Ability-Connected Services due to various reasons as mentioned:-

ABB has vast experience in the operation of EV chargers and can support various digital integration models depending on customer preferences. Chargers can be operated by connecting to the ABB Ability platform via a cloud-to-cloud OCPP API or by using a direct OCPP connection from the charger directly to the customer IT system.

OCPP API Concept

The core of ABB’s Connected Services offering is a cloud-based platform to which chargers are connected, and from which digital services are offered.

1. Scalability and flexibility

By using ABB’s modern cloud platform as a connection point, operators limit the cost and risk related to designing and operating a scalable IT setup that must be capable of connecting large numbers of chargers with highest reliability. ABB’s expertise in connecting thousands of chargers and managing IoT (Internet of Things) platforms is a great benefit to customers, who can thus avoid building up their own operations and infrastructure for such services.

2. Minimize investments in IT infrastructure

The ability to rely on ABBs service platform with extensive technical support features, allows operators to focus their back office on network monitoring and offering innovative e-mobility services such as driver access management, billing and fleet management.

3. Best in class service and support

4. High uptime and reliability of Connected Services

Components Involved in the system:

The ABB Connected Services offering comprises of four main parts:

  1. Charger Connect giving access to the ABB Ability Connected Services Platform.
  2. APIs for back-office integration.
  3. Web tools for monitoring and basic management of the network by simply using an Internet browser.
  4. Charger Care Service Level Agreements for remote monitoring and diagnostics by ABB. A separate product brochure is available with more details about the ABB Charge Care offering. Charger Connect forms the basis of all Connected Services. Customers then select from our offering of APIs, Web tools and Charger Care SLAs to best fit their needs.

Benefits of using ABB Ability-Connected Services:

  1. Better & Faster Support: Outperform on Total Cost of Ownership & Time to Repair with the best troubleshooting support from ABB Network Operating Center (NOC) and ABB Service.
  2. Extended OCPP Capabilities: Extra functionality with charger specific information on top of the OCPP standard
  3. Innovative API’s: Additional value in the end customer experience and increased operational efficiency
  4. Effortless Scalability: The required IT resources scale in our ABB Ability cloud and connectivity monitoring is done by ABB
  5. Increased Security: Microsoft Azure-based security and only one connection to your backend
    you have to monitor.