E.ON launches OMNe, the digital consulting tool for accurate charging infrastructure planning

With the increasing adoption in electric vehicles, a whole host of necessary changes to infrastructure have come about: from retailers introducing EV charging points with customer parking, to electric car charging points for businesses. Targets such as ensuring that most new cars and vans are electric by 2030 mean that now is the ideal time for businesses to assess which EV charging solutions are likely to fit every individual need.

This is where OMNe, the new business consulting service of E.ON Innovation, Data.ON and E.ON Drive comes in. OMNe is a new tool of E.ON that can be used both for planning the first charging stations at a company site and expanding existing infrastructure. And all of this within minutes. “OMNe’s particular strength is that we include all electric vehicles at the site, the buildings’ electricity consumption and the grid connection in our calculations – and can thus determine the optimal solution for our B2B customers, both in terms of the number of charging stations and costs. E.ON's holistic approach in B2B customer consulting is a first in this market”, says Nico Friedmann, Head of Sales E-Mobility E.ON Drive Germany.

The new OMNe tool reduces costs through dynamic load management solution, that is tailored to the customer’s profile. The E.ON energy experts differentiate between the commercial vehicles at the premises, which are usually charged overnight, vehicles of employees, that are mostly on site during business hours and electric vehicles that must be ready for use quickly and be charged as a matter of priority.

Due to the different parking and charging hours, the vehicles can be charged in a staggered manner, optimising utilisation of the energy infrastructure. While also considering load profile, grid connection and the company’s energy consumption targets for the calculation, OMNe then determines the most cost-efficient charging solution. “Throughout the development of this digital solution, the focus has clearly been set on the creation of a customer-oriented, and data-driven solution,” says Dr. Lioudmila Simon, Head of Innovation, Networked Mobility at E.ON Group Innovation Gmbh.

With the OMNe tool, B2B customers can get an instant support regarding the initial planning stages, evaluation of their grid connection, installation and operation of the charging solution as well as billing the electricity for the vehicles. In the future, the OMNe solution will also incorporate on-site battery storage or photovoltaic systems. Both of these solutions play an important role in E.ON's strategic innovation activities. Battery storage systems already allow for an effective and cost-efficient local integration of renewable energies. With photovoltaic systems, in turn, customers become "prosumers" (producers and consumers) of energy: active co-creators of the new decentralised and sustainable energy world. For e-mobility, this combination means an optimisation of energy flows at the customer location and more charging processes at a given grid connection.

The digital tool at the heart of OMNe is continuously being further developed. “We will continue to work on the OMNe tool, utilising the combined expertise of Customer Solutions, Energy Networks and Data Analytics within the E.ON Group and incrementally adding new functional modules. During the next step, the tool will be adapted to the specific requirements of various international E.ON markets”, says Mark Ritzmann, Managing Director, E.ON Group Innovation GmbH.

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