Fastcharge consortium presents prototype for 450 kW charging station; Porsche research vehicle charges at 400 kW
13 December 2018
In Germany, the FastCharge research consortium (earlier post) has presented a prototype for a charging station with an output of up to 450 kW in Jettingen-Scheppach, located near the A8 motorway between Ulm and Augsburg. The new charging station is suitable for electric models of all brands with the European standard Type 2 variant of the widely used Combined Charging System (CCS), and is now available for use free of charge.
A Porsche research vehicle with a net battery capacity of approximately 90 kWh achieved a charging capacity of more than 400 kW on the new charging station, allowing for charging times of less than 3 minutes for the first 100 km range. An innovative cooling system makes this possible by ensuring even gentle temperature control in the battery cells.
BMW also had an i3 research vehicle at the inauguration.
Initiated in July 2016, the Fast Charge research project has received €7.8 million (US$8.9 million) in funding from the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. The implementation of the funding guidelines is being coordinated by the German National Organisation Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology (NOW).
The industrial consortium includes automotive manufacturers the BMW Group and Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche AG, as well as operators Allego GmbH, Phoenix Contact E-Mobility GmbH (charging technology) and Siemens AG (electrical engineering).
Increasing the available charging capacity to up to 450 kW allows charging times to be significantly reduced. The charging capacity of the new FastChargers is three to nine times as high as what is currently possible with DC rapid-charging stations. The FastCharge project examines what technical conditions need to be fulfilled in terms of vehicles and infrastructure in order to allow extremely high charging capacities to be applied.
The energy supply system from Siemens used in the project makes it possible to test the limits of the fast charging capability of vehicle batteries. It can already work with higher voltages of up to 920 volts, as expected in future electric vehicles.
Both the high-performance electronics for the charging connections and the communication interface to the electric vehicles were integrated into the system. This charging controller automatically adjusts the power to be delivered so that different electric cars can be charged with an infrastructure.
The flexible, modular architecture of the system also allows multiple vehicles to be loaded simultaneously. Due to charging with high currents and voltages, it allows a variety of different applications, such as for fleet charging solutions or, as in this case, charging on highways.
For the connection to the public power grid in Jettingen-Scheppach, a loading container with two charging connections was realized in the project: one connection has a charging capacity of max. 450 kW, the second gives up to 175 kW.
To meet the requirements of fast charging with particularly high performance, cooled HPC charging cables (High Power Charging) from Phoenix Contact are used, which are fully CCS-compatible. The cooling liquid is an environmentally friendly water-glycol mixture used, making the cooling circuit can be made semi-open. As a result maintenance, in contrast to hermetically sealed systems that work with oil, is simple—for example, when coolant is replenished.
One challenge was not to squeeze the cooling hoses in the charging line when connecting to the charging station, as would happen with a conventional cable, as this would affect the cooling flow and thus the cooling capacity. This problem was solved by Phoenix Contact with a specially developed wall duct with defined interfaces for power transmission, communication and cooling as well as integrated strain relief.
The Combined Charging System (CCS) Type 2 variant that is standard for Europe has already proven itself in a wide range of electrified vehicles and is used in many parts of the world.
The two Jettinger charging stations are currently available for use with all CCS-enabled vehicles, free of charge. Depending on the model of vehicle, the new ultra-fast charging station can be used for vehicles with 400-volt and those with 800-volt battery systems. In each case the charging capacity provided automatically adjusts to the vehicle’s maximum permitted charging capacity.
One step ahead towards 750 KW charging facilities?
Of course, future batteries and cabling would have to be upgraded accordingly.
Posted by: HarveyD | 13 December 2018 at 08:28 AM
If they're interested in really cutting down the volume required for coolant they're going to need to look at something like ammonia heat pipes. Phase change materials transfer a lot more heat than single-phase ones, and almost all gases are good insulators.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 13 December 2018 at 10:46 AM
Great ... but let's see. What if several cars show up at the same time? Oops, they are screwed. Even better: grid did not have a load of 450kW and all over sudden it does. This is, also, true for load disappearance: 450kW were being consumed and all over sudden the load is gone. No grid likes it. Now imagine 10 charging points like that next to each other with all cars showing up simultaneously. Voltage sags and surges are unavoidable is such kind of structure . The structure is supposed to be different ... but this is a subject of different conversation.
Posted by: CarCrazy | 13 December 2018 at 02:21 PM
DC charging facilities with buffering storage units would isolate the local grid from surcharges?
Intelligent grids could also mange variable loads?
Posted by: HarveyD | 13 December 2018 at 03:35 PM
Not likely until a lot more of the vehicle fleet is EVs. We should be so lucky.
That's what the 20-ft container full of batteries is for. You can ramp the grid power consumption much more smoothly than a straight on/off.
If we got serious about zero-emission generation and energy storage, buffering 4.5 MW transients would be a breeze. We could go from zero to 900+ megawatts and back as fast as the turbine seal clearances would let us. Of course, it would be much more economical to use molten salts as the storage medium and generate electricity as needed rather than trying to store electricity in batteries.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 13 December 2018 at 09:44 PM
It strikes me that the problem will be getting people to connect and disconnect quickly when charged.
Lets say you have an 80 KwH battery and a 320 Kw charger, you can charge to full in 15 minutes, fine. What do you do in the 15 minutes ? You get a coffee and a "comfort break". What if you get delayed and turn up 20 minutes later, having wasted 5 minutes of a 320 Kw charger? Bit of a waste.
It strikes me you could have two cables per charger, one charging, the other waiting, so that as soon as the charge has finished, you can start the second one.
Also, you could hand out a wireless buzzer to tell people to their cars are ready, like they have in coffee shops.
+ even if you have 10 stations and 10 cars come up, you can stagger the start times to keep the power draw increase to a manageable level.
+ as people, say, you could have some local storage to further smooth the load change. Nothing impossible here, just take batteries and organisation.
Posted by: mahonj | 14 December 2018 at 02:02 AM
This is where the self-driving car comes in handy. Even if it's only capable of managing itself at parking-lot speeds of 10 MPH or less, that's plenty for getting itself from the charger over to the coffee shop or wherever the driver is. And of course you can have more charging cables/stations than you have capacity to serve at full power, you just let the later arrivals plug in and wait until power is available for them. Reservation systems are a no-brainer.
In this age of text messaging, WiFi and Bluetooth, buzzers are practically antiques.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 14 December 2018 at 04:57 AM
It is almost the same article and same comments as years ago, LOL LOL.
Posted by: regorr | 14 December 2018 at 01:56 PM
4C charging will reduce the capacity of packs, that gets expensive.
Posted by: SJC | 17 December 2018 at 08:29 AM