What Is Group Charging?

Group charging, also called dynamic power sharing, is an architecture where one master power unit distributes electricity across multiple charging terminals, allocating it in real time based on which vehicles are actually plugged in and how much they need. Instead of every bay having its own dedicated grid feed, the whole group draws from one shared capacity.

One Master, Many Satellites

A group charging system has a single master unit connected to the site's power supply, feeding several satellite terminals out at the bays themselves. The master constantly measures how much power is available and how many vehicles are connected, then splits it accordingly, rather than reserving a fixed, unused allocation for every bay whether it's occupied or not.

Why This Changes the Grid Connection Math

Without group charging, sizing a depot means adding up the full rated power of every charger and provisioning a grid connection for that theoretical maximum, even though it's rare for every bay to be drawing peak power at the same moment. With group charging, the site is sized to the power actually available, and the system decides where it goes.

In practice, that means a depot can install more charging bays than its raw grid connection would otherwise support, which is usually the difference between a project needing an expensive DNO capacity upgrade and one that doesn't.

Where It Works Best

Group charging suits any site where vehicles arrive and leave on staggered schedules rather than all at once, which describes most bus depots, logistics yards, and multi-bay commercial car parks. It's less useful where every vehicle genuinely needs full power at the exact same time, since there's less slack in the system to share.

Neutron's Modular Group Charging

Our Modular Group Charging system runs one master cabinet across up to six satellite terminals, from 240 kW up to 960 kW of shared capacity, with allocation handled automatically as vehicles connect and disconnect throughout the day.

Is group charging the same as dynamic load balancing?

They're closely related. Group charging is the hardware architecture: one master unit feeding multiple satellite terminals. Dynamic load balancing is the software logic running on top of it that decides, moment to moment, how much power each connected vehicle actually gets.

Does group charging slow down individual vehicles?

Only when every bay is drawing power at once, and even then the system prioritises rather than splitting power evenly. Most depots rarely hit that ceiling, since vehicles arrive and finish charging on staggered schedules, not all at the exact same moment.