Automatic And Dynamic Home Electricity Load Balancing For The Purpose Of EV

Charging

PATENT NUMBER DOCUMENT ID DATE PUBLISHED

11524590 US 11524590 B2 2022-12-13

INVENTOR INFORMATION
NAME CITY STATE ZIP CODE COUNTRY Billmaier;
James A.
Woodinville WA N/A US

ASSIGNEE INFORMATION
NAME CITY STATE ZIP CODE COUNTRY
CHARGEPOINT, Campbell CA N/A US
INC.
TYPE CODE
02

APPLICATION NO DATE FILED

16/983883 2020-08-03

DOMESTIC PRIORITY (CONTINUITY DATA)

continuation parent-doc US 15950086 20180410 US 10730395 child-doc US 16983883
continuation parent-doc US 14198277 20140305 US 9937812 20180410 child-doc US 15950086
continuation parent-doc US 13492894 20120610 US 8723478 20140513 child-doc US 14198277
continuation parent-doc US 13047761 20110314 US 8232765 20120731 child-doc US 13492894
us-provisional-application US 61313717 20100313

US CLASS CURRENT:

1/1

CPC CURRENT
TYPE CPC DATE
CPCI B 60 L 55/00 2019-02-01
CPCI H 02 J 3/02 2013-01-01
CPCI B 60 L 53/665 2019-02-01
CPCI B 60 L 53/65 2019-02-01
CPCI B 60 L 53/64 2019-02-01
CPCI B 60 L 53/14 2019-02-01
CPCI B 60 L 53/63 2019-02-01
CPCA Y 02 T 90/16 2013-01-01
CPCA Y 02 T 90/14 2013-01-01
CPCA Y 02 T 90/167 2013-01-01
CPCA Y 02 T 10/7072 2013-01-01
CPCA B 60 L 2240/72 2013-01-01
CPCA Y 02 E 60/00 2013-01-01
CPCA Y 02 T 10/72 2013-01-01
CPCA Y 02 T 90/12 2013-01-01
CPCA Y 04 S 10/126 2013-01-01
CPCA Y 04 S 30/14 2013-01-01
 CPCA Y 02 T 10/70 2013-01-01

KWIC Hits

Abstract

An electric vehicle charging system includes logic collocated with an electric service panel to monitor a
total present electric current consumption value for all electric consumers below a point in the service
panel; a first input to receive the present electric current consumption value from the logic collocated
with the service panel, and to compare the present electric current consumption value with a maximum
current capacity value for the service panel; a second input to receive electric current from the service
panel; an output to supply electric charging power to at least one electric vehicle; and logic to set an
electric charging current drawn from the service panel through the second input and provided to the
electric vehicle charging output to a value less than a difference between the maximum current
capacity for the service panel and a sum of the present electric current consumption value and the
current consumption value of a largest expected electric consumer.

Background/Summary

PRIORITY (1) This application is a continuation of Ser. No. 15/950,086, filed Apr. 10, 2018, which is a
continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 14/198,277, filed Mar. 5, 2014, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,937,812,
which is a continuation of Ser. No. 13/492,894, filed Jun. 10, 2012, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,723,478,
which is a continuation of Ser. No. 13/047,761, filed Mar. 14, 2011, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,232,765,
which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/313,717, filed Mar. 13, 2010.

BACKGROUND

(1) Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles will be replaced by Electric Vehicles (EVs) over the
coming years. The purchase and use of EVs is poised to rapidly expand in the United States in the
near term. It is estimated that as much as 80% of the electrical charging for these vehicles will be
accomplished at the owner's residence. The typical charging requirement for EVs, where more than 1-
2 hours is available for the process, will be done with a “Level II” charger. A Level II charger provides
220 Volts of charging capability, usually at 30-40 Amps. This is a significant load on the typical U.S.
electric energy supply. Almost all U.S. homes have a master panel that provides 200 Amps or less of
electric capacity. Many are 125 Amps or 100Amps, which makes charging an EV a considerable
percentage of the available home electric power. The cost of upgrading or replacing the master service
panel in the home can be quite expensive, and in some cases, not possible. This choke point and the
expense involved in upgrading the home electric service may suppress the ability for a large part of
the U.S. population to move to EVs. This problem is exacerbated when the possibility of two or more
EVs per home is taken into account.

(2) This same problem may be extrapolated to public charging stations. Just as a home service panel
may approach its capacity in serving electrical demands, so too may a commercial site have an
electric service panel that is undersized relative to the need when EV charging demand is added.

(3) Level II charging infrastructure requires expensive circuitry and wiring that is dedicated to one EV
at a time. It is also the case that EVs will often occupy a parking bay, at home or in a public parking
space, for hours after their EV battery packs are fully charged. This underutilizes the costly EV
charging infrastructure.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) In the drawings, the same reference numbers and acronyms identify elements or acts with the
same or similar functionality for ease of understanding and convenience. To easily identify the
discussion of any particular element or act, the most significant digit or digits in a reference number
refer to the figure number in which that element is first introduced.

(2) FIG. 1 is an illustration of an embodiment of an electric vehicle charging environment.

(3) FIG. 2 is an illustration of an embodiment of a device installed at a power panel to facilitate electric
vehicle charging.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

(4) References to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” do not necessarily refer to the same
embodiment, although they may.

(5) Unless the context clearly requires otherwise, throughout the description and the claims, the words
“comprise,” “comprising,” and the like are to be construed in an inclusive sense as opposed to an
exclusive or exhaustive sense; that is to say, in the sense of “including, but not limited to.” Words using
the singular or plural number also include the plural or singular number respectively, unless expressly
limited to a single one or multiple ones. Additionally, the words “herein,” “above,” “below” and words of
similar import, when used in this application, refer to this application as a whole and not to any
particular portions of this application. When the claims use the word “or” in reference to a list of two or
more items, that word covers all of the following interpretations of the word: any of the items in the list,
all of the items in the list and any combination of the items in the list, unless expressly limited to one or
the other.

(6) “Logic” refers to circuitry and/or machine-readable media (e.g. memory or other non-transitory
electronic or optical circuits or media) physically adapted to influence the operation of a device.
Magnetic media, circuits, electrical and optical memory, and firmware are examples of logic.

(7) Those skilled in the art will appreciate that logic may be distributed throughout one or more
devices, and/or may be comprised of combinations of instructions in memory, processing capability,
circuits, and so on. Therefore, in the interest of clarity and correctness logic may not always be
distinctly illustrated in drawings of devices and systems, although it is inherently present therein.

(8) The techniques and procedures described herein may be implemented via logic distributed in one
or more devices. The particular distribution and choice of logic is a design decision that will vary
according to implementation.

(9) An electric vehicle charging system is described herein that includes logic collocated with an
electric service panel to monitor a total present electric current consumption value for all electric
consumers below a point in the service panel. The system includes a first input to receive the present
electric current consumption value from the logic collocated with the service panel, and to compare the
present electric current consumption value with a maximum current capacity value for the service
panel; and the system includes a second input to receive electric current from the service panel. The
system includes an output to supply electric charging power to at least one electric vehicle and logic to
set an electric charging current drawn from the service panel through the second input and provided to
the electric vehicle charging output, to a value less than a difference between the maximum current
capacity for the service panel and a sum of the present electric current consumption value and the
current consumption value of a largest expected electric consumer. The largest expected electric
consumer may be a single consumer, or a group of more than one electric consumers that are
expected to be active at the same time, based on one or more of the time of day or day of the week.

(10) The logic collocated with the electric service panel may interface with the electric service panel in
the same manner as a circuit breaker device. A logic setting may be included for an offset amount of
current reflecting a location of the logic collocated on the service panel along a hot rail of the service
panel, the offset amount representing an amount of electricity used by electric consumers served by
breakers above the collocated logic on the hot rail.
(11) The output of the charging system may include multiple couplers to interface with multiple electric
vehicles, and logic to load share the supply of electric charging power among the multiple couplers.
The system may allocate the supply of electric charging power among the couplers according to
charging requirements of the electric vehicles, for example asymmetrically among the electric vehicles.
The supply of electric charging power provided to the output may be inversely proportional to an
amount of time until a next driving session for a coupled electric vehicle and directly proportional to an
amount of depletion of a battery of the coupled electric vehicle. The supply of electric charging power
may be allocated among the electric vehicles based upon one or the more following: an electric
vehicle battery size; an electric vehicle battery status; an electric vehicle battery average mean,
median, or mode of daily miles driven; a charging history for an electric vehicle. The charging power
may be allocated based on a rotating asymmetric duty cycle. A charging status for an electric vehicle
may be provided to an interface whereby the charging status is communicated wirelessly to a
consumer's wireless receiving data device.

(12) FIG. 1 is an illustration of an embodiment of an electric vehicle charging environment. Features of

both a residential and a commercial, e.g. public, EV charging station are illustrated together for
convenience of description, although in practice, certain features may be implemented and probably
would be implemented separately due to the different application environments. Power enters a
master service panel 102 where the amount of current indicative of the total power consumption is
tapped and measured by, in this example, an inductive clamp 126. The panel 102 provides power from
taps after the master breaker 104 to various appliances 108 and other electric consumers within a
household or commercial setting. Among the energy consumers, there is a primary consumer 110, a
device or group of devices which, when activated, consumes more power than any other device in the
environment. A power tap 106 is provided to an EV charging station 128. Information about total power
consumption in the residence or commercial setting is provided via inductive tap 126 to the charging
station 128. Charging station 128 comprises couplers to possibly multiple EVs 112 and 114, or in some
cases only a single EV. Interface logic 122 may communicate with the EVs 112 and 114 to provide
charging power and to ascertain status such as how low the battery has been depleted, its capacity,
average daily miles, etc. The charging station 128 may further comprise an interface 124 to the master
service panel as well as logic 120 to ascertain a charging cycle schedule and to implement various
features of the charging station that have been described herein. An interface 118 to a wireless
communication facility 116 may be provided as described herein.

(13) In some applications a vehicle may receive charge from multiple sources. Charge sources may be
categorized according to their capability to deliver charge. For example, a Level 1 and/or level 2 and/or
level 3 charger and/or an energy storage system such as a battery “cache” and/or another electric
vehicle may be employed. The charging client car could combine this charging sources to produce the
quickest or most cost efficient charge. Consistent with this concept, a plug consisting of both an AC
(Level 2 connector) and a DC (Level 3 connector) may be used.

(14) Overall home or commercial site energy usage may be monitored to dynamically and
automatically adapt or “fit” the usage of the electric power required for EV charging into the home or
business electric energy budget. This solution may also provide an incremental layer of safety to the
home electric system. The EV charging infrastructure may be time shared or load shared between two
or more EVs parked near the same charging station.

(15) Herein, Level 1 charging station means a charging station that delivers 110V AC×1 6 Amps-1.5
KW of charging capacity. Level 2 charging station means a charging station that delivers 220V AC× up
to 70 Amps (more typically, 30 Amps)—6 KW-7 KW of charging capacity. A Level 3 charging station
(also known as Fast Charger or Quick Charger) takes 480V three phase AC×100 Amps input, and
delivers 200V-500V DC 100 Amp output—25 KW-50 KW of charging capacity.

(16) An inductive electric power measurement clamping system or other current monitor arrangement
may be installed at a master panel. This power measurement system continuously measures the
overall power consumption of the home or a portion of the home. A signal path may be connected to
the clamped inductive measurement device and extended, along with 220V power wires, to a home
charging station (this solution may be used in commercial settings as well). The signal wire may be
coupled to analog to digital circuitry in the charging unit. The charging unit enables the installer to
program a Master Service Panel Size (eg. 100 Amp, 125 Amp, or 200 Amp) into the charging unit
logic. Furthermore, a largest non-charging station electric consumer, or group of coordinated
consumes, may be programmed into the charging unit (eg. electric dryer=220V×30 Amps). The
charging unit dynamically varies its charging output based upon the overall available power, with room
to accommodate a potential increase in demand.

(17) The current/power monitor may be coupled above or below the main circuit breaker for the panel
(providing a measure of total current/power for all consumers served by the panel). The current/power
monitor may be coupled at a location in the panel receiving only a fraction of the total current to the
panel. In this case, the measurement is for only those consumers served by a subsection of the panel.
For example, if the monitor is coupled along the “hot” rail of the panel below X breakers, the current
consumption of those X breakers will not be included in the power measurement provided by the
monitor. However, a facility may be provided in the monitor device, or in the panel, to add an amount
to any current measurement to account for the consumers located above the monitor device in the
panel. The amount added to the current measurement is a presumed current consumption of the
unmeasured consumers, and it may be a constant amount of current, or it may be an amount that
varies according to other conditions, such as time of day, day of week, date, or the activity of other
consumers in the panel.

(18) FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a current monitor collocated in an electrical panel, and configured
to interface with the panel as a circuit breaker. The power main 202 leads into the panel 200 at a main
breaker 204. The panel 200 splits off the main 202 into a hot rail 206 (which is always carrying current)
and a neutral rail 210, which carries current returning from a load. The panel may be grounded, and a
ground rail 208 provided for grounding consumer outlets. Note that in some panels (e.g., main panels
in residences), and depending on local building codes, the ground and neutral rails 208 210 may be
one and the same.

(19) A device 212 is provided to monitor current at a point along the hot rail 206. The device 212 may
interface to the panel 100 as a circuit breaker would. The device 212 may control the delivery of
current to an EV charging station or may function as the charging station itself If the device 212 is
located directly under the main breaker 204, it can measure the entire current draw of all consumers
coupled to the panel (including consumers on subpanels). Otherwise, as the device is located further
down the hot rail 206, it measures current consumption of only those devices located below it on the
hot rail 206. Note that the device could be located anywhere on the hot rail 206, but still measure
current draw of all consumers on the panel by inductively coupling above or immediately below the
main breaker 204. This is shown by dotted line 214.

(20) The following is a description of an exemplary installation. A master panel has 125 Amps of
capacity with 25 Amps being used at the instant moment and a potential new load of 30 Amps from a
dryer, the system has 70 Amps of capacity to allot to the function of home charging . . . more than
enough to allow for full charge for a single Level II charging session. If, however, the non-charging
usage grows to 80 Amps during the charging session, the system dynamically reduces the Level II
charging to 15 Amps, bringing the total usage to 95 Amps, which provides room for the dryer to be
turned on without the master breaker tripping. At the point that the dryer is turned on, bringing the total
power consumption to 125 Amps, the charging unit discontinues charging until electric capacity
becomes available.

(21) Another solution that may be implemented from the techniques described herein is as follows.
From a single charging station that is electrically wired to provide a full charging service (220V/30-40
Amps) for one EV at a time, wire two or more EV charging connectors (JI 772). These connectors may
be simultaneously plugged into two or more cars. A single station (e.g.220V/30-40 Amps of electric
charging capacity) may be intelligently controlled to load share or time-share the charging capacity
amongst the EVs. If only one EV is plugged in, it may utilize 100% of the charging capacity.

(22) If more than one EV is plugged in, the capacity may be shared by splitting the capacity based
upon each car's charging requirements. When two or more EVs are plugged in, and one or more EVs
completes its charge, the full electric charging capability of the charging station may be applied to the
remaining not fully charged EV. The charging capacity may be shared on an equal basis or on an
asymmetric basis, depending upon the connected cars' charging requirements.

(23) The EVs charging requirements and charging priority may be manually programmed into the
station with information such as expected time to next driving session (how long will the EV be
parked). Alternatively, the charging station may set charging priority based upon information such as
EV battery size (KWH capacity), battery status (how much charge exists in the battery), typical daily
miles driven, and/or by learning the charging behavioral pattern and preferences of the EV over a
period of time. To learn a vehicle's behavior, the charging station may record a vehicle identification
and associate charging session information with the vehicle identification. Alternatively, the charging
station may receive a vehicle identification from the vehicle or the user of the vehicle, and may access
a central database (via a network) to obtain a charging/usage history profile for the vehicle. In the
second approach, information from multiple charging sessions across multiple charging stations may
be centrally located and accessible.

(24) Combinations of load and time sharing may be employed. In one application the vehicle, or the
charging station, apply inputs about when the car may be next used based upon previous driving
patterns or manual user input of the data. Based upon these inputs and the knowledge of the available
charging capability (load) the charging of multiple cars may be appropriately time shared or load
shared based upon the time to departure and/or driving distance for the next trip. By way of example,
two cars may be parked in a home garage. One car is used frequently for short trips to the store and
driving kids to school. The other car is mostly used on the weekends. Depending upon the day and
time and the anticipated need, the charging priority and load preference would be allocated based
upon this data.

(25) The charging station or the electric vehicle may log times and/or locations of a charge, and how
much charge was applied. The vehicle may also log driving information, such as distances traveled
and when and where it traveled. When the station performs the logging, it may also identify the vehicle
that received the charge and associate an identification of the vehicle with the time/location/amount
information. The charging station and the vehicle may communication information wirelessly (e.g.,
Bluetooth or other short-range wireless technology) or via the charging adaptor itself (e.g., XI 0), using
known approaches. For example, an electric vehicle may record its charging history and/or driving
history, which includes times, dates, locations, and/or amounts of charge, as well as possibly including
routes and distances traveled and when traveled. Some or all of this information may be provided to
the charging station, which then makes settings so that the vehicle receives an appropriate allocation
of charging capacity for the time it is expected to remain coupled to the station. Or, the electric vehicle
may compute a desired charge allocation based on the recorded factors and request this allocation
from the charging station, which may set an appropriate price to meet the vehicle's charging
requirements in the time allotted and/or under the conditions prevailing.

(26) In one implementation, the charging station keeps track of a vehicle's driving/charging profile (as
described above), and enables this charging profile to be transferred to other vehicles. The exchange
of driving/charging profiles between charging stations and vehicles may take place using known
communication techniques, as described above.

(27) In another application, the cars exchange charge (siphon from one car or multiple cars to the
other) based upon this data. Other electric consumers on the network (e.g., home appliances) may
also participate in the sharing mechanism. If, historically, a dryer appliance is not used at midnight,
more power through the panel may be made available for the charging of the automobiles. Or an
appliance may signal the panel indicating it will not be operated for certain time periods, thereby
allowing the allocation of more power to charge vehicles during those times. In anticipation of a vehicle
being plugged in for charging, the panel may decrease the electricity available to power other
consumers in the home; if the vehicle isn't plugged in at or within a predetermined interval of the
expected time, the reserved electricity may be released for use by other consumers.
(28) In a public/commercial setting, the consumer may plug in and “compete” for capacity via a pricing
or bidding mechanism. Alternatively to sharing the load simultaneously, a round robin time sharing
algorithm may be applied to the two or more cars plugged into the same charging station via the
multiple connectors. In this instance, one EV may receive I00% of the charging capacity for a specified
period of time. At the end of that period of time, the next car may receive I00% of the charging
capacity, and so on. This approach allows for an asymmetric approach in which one EV receives 75%
of the capacity for a fixed period of time, the second car receives 25% for that period of time, and the
third car receives 0%. At the end of the fixed period of time, the allocation rotates. The first car
receives 0%, the second car receives 75%, and the third car receives 25% . . . and so on, until the
cars are fully charged or disconnected from the system.

(29) In all of the above cases, the EV owner may be informed of the charging status of each car
connected to the single charging station via a web connected and/or wireless device such as a
smartphone. The information conveyed is an estimated time to charge completion of other cars on the
single charge station.

(30) A charge consumer may set a price he/she is willing to pay for a charge and prioritized based
upon other bids for that charging session. Similarly the consumer could pay for an “assured” delivered
charge (the equivalent of “buy it now” or certified delivery). Providers of power, including drivers of
other cars, could offer the power in their battery packs to be shared at a given price with others
requiring a charge with more immediate need than they might have. The donor car could set
parameters such as, sell my charge at $1 per KWH but not below ½ tank. Or by time . . . sell my 50%
of my charge until 4 pm.

(31) These parameters may be pre-set by the provider/consumer, and/or set in real-time with a bidding
system, with control and notification done from a computer, a smart-phone and/or an system on board
the car. Additionally, the consumer may allow the system to automatically make the decisions based
upon any and all of the above data discussed above.

(32) Additional embodiments for sharing charging infrastructure amongst multiple EVs are to
automatically stop the charging session once an EV is fully charged, and close out that account
session. This allows the owner of another EV to legitimately disconnect the station connector from the
first EV account session and plug it into his EV. The cessation of the session may physically release
(unlock) the connector, close the account session, notify the first EV owner that his EV is charged,
update the status of the charge station to indicate that a EV charging spot is open.

Implementations and Alternatives

(33) Those having skill in the art will appreciate that there are various logic implementations by which
processes and/or systems described herein can be effected (e.g., hardware, software, and/or
firmware), and that the preferred vehicle will vary with the context in which the processes are
deployed. For example, if an implementer determines that speed and accuracy are paramount, the
implementer may opt for a hardware and/or firmware vehicle; alternatively, if flexibility is paramount,
the implementer may opt for a solely software implementation; or, yet again alternatively, the
implementer may opt for some combination of hardware, software, and/or firmware. Hence, there are
several possible vehicles by which the processes described herein may be effected, none of which is
inherently superior to the other in that any vehicle to be utilized is a choice dependent upon the
context in which the vehicle will be deployed and the specific concerns (e.g., speed, flexibility, or
predictability) of the implementer, any of which may vary. Those skilled in the art will recognize that
optical aspects of implementations may involve optically-oriented hardware, software, and or firmware.

(34) The foregoing detailed description has set forth various embodiments of the devices and/or
processes via the use of block diagrams, flowcharts, and/or examples. Insofar as such block
diagrams, flowcharts, and/or examples contain one or more functions and/or operations, it will be
understood as notorious by those within the art that each function and/or operation within such block
diagrams, flowcharts, or examples can be implemented, individually and/or collectively, by a wide
range of hardware, software, firmware, or virtually any combination thereof. Several portions of the
subject matter described herein may be implemented via Application Specific Integrated Circuits
(ASICs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), digital signal processors (DSPs), or other
integrated formats. However, those skilled in the art will recognize that some aspects of the
embodiments disclosed herein, in whole or in part, can be equivalently implemented in standard
integrated circuits, as one or more computer programs running on one or more computers (e.g., as
one or more programs running on one or more computer systems), as one or more programs running
on one or more processors (e.g., as one or more programs running on one or more microprocessors),
as firmware, or as virtually any combination thereof, and that designing the circuitry and/or writing the
code for the software and/or firmware would be well within the skill of one of skill in the art in light of
this disclosure. In addition, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the mechanisms of the subject
matter described herein are capable of being distributed as a program product in a variety of forms,
and that an illustrative embodiment of the subject matter described herein applies equally regardless
of the particular type of signal bearing media used to actually carry out the distribution. Examples of a
signal bearing media include, but are not limited to, the following: recordable type media such as
floppy disks, hard disk drives, CD ROMs, digital tape, and computer memory.

(35) In a general sense, those skilled in the art will recognize that the various aspects described herein
which can be implemented, individually and/or collectively, by a wide range of hardware, software,
firmware, or any combination thereof can be viewed as being composed of various types of “electrical
circuitry.” Consequently, as used herein “electrical circuitry” or “circuits” or the like includes, but is not
limited to, electrical circuitry having at least one discrete electrical circuit, electrical circuitry having at
least one integrated circuit, electrical circuitry having at least one application specific integrated circuit,
electrical circuitry forming a general purpose computing device configured by a computer program
(e.g., a general purpose computer configured by a computer program which at least partially carries
out processes and/or devices described herein, or a microprocessor configured by a computer
program which at least partially carries out processes and/or devices described herein), electrical
circuitry forming a memory device (e.g., forms of random access memory), and/or electrical circuitry
forming a communications device (e.g., a modem, communications switch, or optical-electrical
equipment).

(36) Those skilled in the art will recognize that it is common within the art to describe devices and/or
processes in the fashion set forth herein, and thereafter use standard engineering practices to
integrate such described devices and/or processes into larger systems. That is, at least a portion of
the devices and/or processes described herein can be integrated into a network processing system via
a reasonable amount of experimentation.

(37) The foregoing described aspects depict different components contained within, or connected with,
different other components. It is to be understood that such depicted architectures are merely
exemplary, and that in fact many other architectures can be implemented which achieve the same
functionality. In a conceptual sense, any arrangement of components to achieve the same functionality
is effectively “associated” such that the desired functionality is achieved.

(38) Hence, any two components herein combined to achieve a particular functionality can be seen as
“associated with” each other such that the desired functionality is achieved, irrespective of
architectures or intermedial components. Likewise, any two components so associated can also be
viewed as being “operably connected”, or “operably coupled”, to each other to achieve the desired
functionality.

Claims

1. A method in an electric vehicle charging system, comprising: monitoring a total present electric
current consumption value for all electric consumers below a point in a service panel of the electric
vehicle charging system; receiving the total present electric current consumption value, wherein the
total present electric current consumption value is less than a maximum current capacity for the
service panel; comparing the total present electric current consumption value with a maximum current
capacity value for the service panel; dynamically setting an electric charging current drawn from the
service panel to an electric vehicle charging output to a value so as not to cause the total present
electric current consumption value to exceed the maximum current capacity for the service panel.

2. A method, comprising: receiving, at a charging station for charging electric vehicles, a present
electric current consumption value that represents a total present electric current consumption value
through a service panel to which the charging station is connected, wherein the present electric
current consumption value is less than a maximum current capacity for the service panel; and
dynamically varying charging output at the charging station such that the dynamically varying charging
output does not cause the present electric current consumption value to exceed the maximum current
capacity for the service panel.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein dynamically varying charging output accounts for a potential
increase in the total present electric current consumption due to a set of one or more electric
consumers other than the charging station drawing electric current through the service panel.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the set of electric consumers includes at least a largest expected
electric consumer, wherein the largest expected electric consumer is a group of more than one electric
consumers that are expected to be active at the same time, based on one or more of a time of day and
day of the week, that time corresponding to potential increase in demand for electric current.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising: communicating a charging status for each of a set of one
or more electric vehicles connected to the charging station to one or more wireless receiving data
devices.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising: wherein at least two electric vehicles are connected to
the charging station; and load sharing the dynamically varying charging output to the at least two
electric vehicles.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the load sharing is based upon at least one of charging
requirements of the at least two electric vehicles, and of charging requirements of a set of one or more
electric consumers other than the at least two electric vehicles.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the load sharing is performed asymmetrically among the at least
two electric vehicles.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the load sharing is based upon one or more of the following: an
electric vehicle battery size of each of the at least two electric vehicles, an electric vehicle battery
status of each of the at least two electric vehicles, an electric vehicle battery average mean, median,
or mode of daily miles driven of each of the at least two electric vehicles, and a charging history of
each of the at least two electric vehicles.

10. A charging station to charge a set of one or more electric vehicles, comprising: a processor and a
non-transitory machine-readable medium that stores instructions that, when executed by the
processor, cause the charging station to perform the following operations: receiving a present electric
current consumption value that represents a total present electric current consumption value through a
service panel to which the charging station is connected, wherein the present electric current
consumption value is less than a maximum current capacity for the service panel; and dynamically
varying charging output at the charging station such that the dynamically varying charging output does
not cause the present electric current consumption value to exceed the maximum current capacity for
the service panel.

11. The charging station of claim 10, wherein dynamically varying charging output accounts for a
potential increase in the total present electric current consumption due to a set of one or more electric
consumers other than the charging station drawing electric current through the service panel.

12. The charging station of claim 11, wherein the set of electric consumers includes at least a largest
expected electric consumer, wherein the largest expected electric consumer is a group of more than
one electric consumers that are expected to be active at the same time, based on one or more of a
time of day and day of the week, that time corresponding to potential increase in demand for electric
current.

13. The charging station of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise: communicating a
charging status for each of the set of one or more electric vehicles connected to the charging station to
one or more wireless receiving data devices.

14. The charging station of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise: wherein the set of one
or more electric vehicles is at least two electric vehicles; and load sharing the dynamically varying
charging output to the at least two electric vehicles.

15. The charging station of claim 14, wherein the load sharing is based upon at least one of charging
requirements of the at least two electric vehicles, and of charging requirements of a set of one or more
electric consumers other than the at least two electric vehicles.

16. The charging station of claim 14, wherein the load sharing is performed asymmetrically among the
at least two electric vehicles.

17. The charging station of claim 14, wherein the load sharing is based upon one or more of the
following: an electric vehicle battery size of each of the at least two electric vehicles, an electric vehicle
battery status of each of the at least two electric vehicles, an electric vehicle battery average mean,
median, or mode of daily miles driven of each of the at least two electric vehicles, and a charging
history of each of the at least two electric vehicles.