DLM Makes the Difference: Perfect Events, Perfect Charging
Ensto Chago takes the parking stage at Jönköping’s legendary exhibition space.
DreamHack is the world’s largest digital festival and LAN party, featuring concerts, digital art, and e-sports. Each fall, more than 20,000 geeks descend on the Elmia Exhibition and Convention Center in Jönköping, Sweden, to compete for DreamHack’s prize purse of over 200,000 euros.
“They sit at their computers 24 hours straight, drinking Red Bull and Coke,” says Leif Klasson, Ensto Area Sales Manager. “The electricity, internet, absolutely everything has to work perfectly.”
Working flawlessly
Elmia’s Kent Gustafsson and Lac Thu Phung are the two key Technicians charged with keeping the DreamHack party going, as well as dozens of other events at the Elmia Center that also demand a flawless experience.
Gustafsson, Thu, plus two additional electricians, are responsible for heat, air, electricity, and light for Elmia’s 77,000 square meters of indoor exhibition space, outdoor exhibition space, plus 4,000 parking spaces that serve it all.
Increasingly, exhibition goers are arriving in electric automobiles. “Four electricians don’t have the time to be hauling out cables every time someone wants to charge his car,” says Ensto’s Klasson. So Elmia selected Ensto to supply them with four Chago dual charging units to handle eight cars. They also specified Chago’s dynamic load management system, or DLM.
DLM and Chago
“DLM was the reason we chose Ensto,” says Lac Thu Phung, Elmia’s unofficial computer genius. Thu not only chose the Ensto system, but he installed it himself.
The DLM allows for the management of five to 20 cars, makes sure fuses don’t blow, and that cars get the proper amount of amps they need. When a car is full, the DLM automatically disconnects it and reroutes energy to another car.
Thu says he met a few challenges connecting the DLM to the system and getting the software running. Ensto specialists remotely logged in to Thu’s system in real time, everyone looked at the same screen, and together they got the system up and running. It’s been smooth sailing since.
If you google´’laddstolpe’, Swedish for ‘charging post’, an Ensto charger is what comes up first.
Another feature of the DLM that attracted Thu was the ability to monitor and control the system remotely, whether from his desktop, a tablet, or even smartphone. “I can check power consumption from anywhere. I can release a stuck hatch if a parker’s RFID card gets demagnetized.”
A growing market
Sweden is not yet a market where electric vehicles are commonplace. Its neighbor, Norway, famous for having 50,000 EVs on the road, uses government-provided incentives to boost EV popularity. In Sweden there are few benefits given to EV drivers, and only 13,000 EVs in use.
But the market is growing and Ensto has sold several hundred Chago units throughout Sweden, including a unit to every Toyota dealer, and a charging pole for many McDonald’s restaurants, as well.
“This has been the most interesting year so far for EVs and Ensto in Sweden,” says Ensto’s Klasson. “The majority of customers are actually finding me.”
“If you google ‘laddstolpe,’ Swedish for ‘charging post,’” adds Klasson, “an Ensto charger is what comes up first.” Being the very definition of charging post in the Swedish language puts Ensto in an enviable position. Thanks to the work of Klasson, and success stories like Elmia, it may be able to stay there a while.