- ChargePoint has partnered with electrical giant Eaton to offer a new micro-grid charging setup, which it says will make fleet charging equipment cheaper, more efficient and more compact.
- By using on-site DC energy from power storage systems or renewables, these chargers can reduce ongoing charging costs by up to 30%.
- The technology cuts out the wasteful AC to DC conversion step, while also allowing users to balance demand with electricity prices, the CEO of ChargePoint told InsideEVs.
ChargePoint has long been an electric-vehicle charging hardware heavyweight. From local utilities using ChargePoint Level 2 dispensers on public infrastructure to private fleet owners operating ChargePoint fast-charging units at logistics hubs, the company quietly powers a large number of electrified vehicles. Now, it’s aiming to take its operations to the next level, with its new ChargePoint Express Grid.
The new system—with the chargers built by ChargePoint and the “micro grid” built by electrical giant Eaton—allows charge point operators (like Electrify America or Ionna, for instance) or fleet operators to use a direct current (DC) setup for an entire charging system.
DC Microgrids are systems that run entirely on DC voltage, which is what batteries and solar panels use, rather than alternating current, which is what comes out of your household outlets.
Because batteries can only accept DC voltage and the power grid is AC, all DC fast chargers have to convert the AC into DC, and then step up the voltage of the grid DC with a DC-DC converter. Every time you convert energy, you lose some of it as waste heat, so by cutting out the AC-DC conversion, you get a more efficient system.
Existing dispensers don’t natively work with micro-grid setups.
Photo by: InsideEVs
The system also still comes with a DC-DC converter, however, allowing operators to mix grid electricity with local battery storage, solar farms or wind turbines. That can be used to optimize costs, charging batteries up while electricity is cheap only to release it when it gets pricy. Despite including this hardware, ChargePoint says the new system can lead to up to 30% space savings compared to existing solutions.
Combined, the benefits of DC microgrid integration with dynamic load balancing will be extremely powerful, ChargePoint CEO Rick Wilmer told InsideEVs in a video interview.
“This is the debut of a new DC charging architecture and a whole product portfolio that branches off from that architecture is pretty game-changing, in terms of reducing [capital expenditures], [operating expenses], the amount of space, the number of pieces of equipment that are required to build out a charging hub,” Wilmer said. “I think it’s going to change the game.”
Because ChargePoint does not operate its own charging stations, it’s offering this to commercial clients starting next year. Charging operators or fleets will be able to get a custom solution designed by Eaton, which will actually build the microgrid they need. He noted that ChargePoint quickly learned in the early days that all vehicles are different, and that integrating the charging experience between vehicle and dispenser was crucial.
“Micro-grids aren’t some standard thing that’s out there that you can just plug chargers into,” he said. You need deep, grid-level integration to make a system like this work. “It became very apparent to me that if you had a deep technological integration with the grid, and Eaton is the builder of the grid, you can bring more innovation and therefore more value to your customers.”
Frankly, I can’t speak to this solution specifically, because I haven’t tested the charging equipment itself. As an idea, however, I think this is clearly the direction the industry is heading.
To me, until we reach some ideal world where the grid is balanced automatically in the background at scale, you’re going to see most industrial-scale energy consumers wanting to take advantage of the potential savings involved with dynamic load balancing.
Here’s where you enter an interesting, expensive, and positive feedback loop: If you want to balance out your energy costs by drawing from the grid only when it’s cheapest, you need a big battery. If you have a big battery, though, you’d be foolish not to be charging it every day with cheap solar energy from your own panels. At that point, why on Earth would you want your company’s vehicles to be running on gas? Might as well need EVs, at which point you might want bigger batteries.
At some point, the natural (and obvious) solution for charging stations in sunny areas is to get the energy from nearby, store it in a battery, and then send it to a battery. There’s no need for alternating current to ever be involved. The solution simultaneously solves the single biggest problem with using solar power with the power grid, as their fluctuating outputs must be meshed with a grid that is built around a stable 60 Hz signal.
Solar panels produce direct current, and their output varies. Converting this noisy, unstable DC output into the 60-hz AC that our grid requires is a lossy, complicated process. Hooking panels directly to batteries gets around it.
This is why we’ve seen Tesla already launch an off-grid station, and why there are many more coming. With plenty of opportunity in this space, it’s good to see an industry heavyweight jumping in. ChargePoint says Express Grid deliveries will start in the second half of 2026.
Contact the author: Mack.Hogan@insideevs.com
