E-MOBILITY
Each system can gather enough
energy to operate four 150kW chargers 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Solar glass panels are mounted to a certified static skeletal structure and arranged in a castle- like design to optimise the capture of solar rays without having to move the structure as the sun moves across the sky. The system has been designed to
withstand severe weather, including hurricane force winds, and houses all the componentry necessary to convert the energy gathered by the panels into electricity for vehicle charging. This includes energy management which controls the energy consumption, storage, and distribution of the charging station and provides power to charge vehicles even on rainy days and at night. The charging station is an off-
Each charging system can
operate four 15kW chargers 24 hours per day
grid system that contains DC-DC converters to stabilise the voltage coming from the solar glass component with combiner boxes connecting to the chargers. It also includes inverters to allow for AC charging of the 10MW battery storage system. The batteries are Lithium Iron Phosphate which are both widely available, affordable, and
offer appropriate energy density for this use case. There are currently plans to
install 40 of these systems along the German Autobahn in 2023, expanding quickly to 150 units throughout Europe by the end of 2024. Each charging station takes just 30 days to deploy and is designed specifically to accommodate large trucks, making it easy for them to pull in and out. The chargers will operate at speeds of up to 300kW and use the CCS2 standard which is universal for trucks and automobiles in the European Union. In addition to reducing the strain
that charging electric trucks will have on the grid, each charging station will reduce CO2 emissions by 1,000 tonnes per year via the generation of solar energy instead of fossil fuels. Given the benefits of off-grid
charging systems and the increasing improvements in efficiencies of both solar glass and batteries, it’s not a question of ‘if’ we will see widespread adoption of solar powered, off-grid vehicle charging stations, but a matter of when.
Ralph Hoffmeier is the Chief Technology Officer at EAWD.
150 systems will be installed throughout Europe by 2024
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