There are only two days left until the doors of Power2Drive open in Munich. The trade fair will showcase charging solutions for electric vehicles as well as opportunities for companies to convert their fleets to electric drive. The following innovations have made it to the short list of the P2D Award.
Flexible solar modules for vehicle integration
The Israeli manufacturer of flexible solar modules, Apollo Power, will be competing for the coveted trophy with its Solarpaint panels. The modules are integrated into heavy commercial vehicles. By utilising solar energy while on the road, fuel and energy costs are reduced. They also protect the vehicle batteries from discharging. The solar modules are connected directly to the vehicle battery and thus supply various electrical consumers in the lorry. A test has shown that fuel savings of up to ten per cent can be achieved.
Clever distribution of charging power
Eco G's solution is aimed directly at battery-electric mobility. The Connect Powerblock developed by the Munich-based company is a unit consisting of power modules and a switching matrix. The latter enables the charging power of fast-charging stations to be distributed to the individual charge points as required. This eliminates the need to provide full power for each charge point and reduces the maximum installed charging capacity required. The system is hardware-independent and is already compatible with charging points from many different hardware manufacturers. One Connect is capable of providing and allocating up to one megawatt of charging power.
Liquid-cooled charging system compatible with storage units
Huawei Digital Power has developed a fully liquid-cooled charger. The Fusion Charge is a DC charging system with internal liquid cooling. Huawei has separated the AC/DC and DC/DC settings in the system. This modular design facilitates maintenance and the integration of an Electricity storage unit or a solar system into the DC link. The Fusion Charge comprises up to twelve DC/DC modules, each with an output of 60 kilowatts. This can be assigned to the individual charge points via power routing. In this way, up to two charge points with a maximum of 480 kilowatts or up to ten charge points with a maximum of 180 kilowatts can be connected.
Modular DC charge point with variable power distribution
Autel Europe has developed a DC fast charging system with a central power cabinet and decentralised charge points. The Maxicharger DC Hipower is available in two versions with a maximum output of 480 or 640 kilowatts. The output can be increased in stages by inserting additional 40-kilowatt power modules. The power cabinet offers up to eight outputs for DC charging columns. A patented matrix switching algorithm enables intelligent and dynamic interconnection of the power modules. This improves the distribution of power.
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Battery container for high-performance charging
Designwerk Technologies has made it to the final of the P2D Award with two solutions. The first is a megawatt battery charging system. It is housed in a container and consists of two charge points and a battery storage unit with a capacity of two megawatt hours. It can provide the stored energy with an output of between 1.4 and 2.1 megawatts. The connected liquid-cooled charging points provide charging capacities of between 200 and 350 kilowatts when using a CCS plug. However, MCS plugs can also be used. MCS stands for Megawatt Charging System. The charging power is correspondingly higher. The integrated battery reduces the necessary mains connection power of the charging station to just 88 to 400 kilowatts.
Mobile charger for lorries and buses
The Swiss company has also launched a mobile DC fast charger. This enables the flexible charging of lorries, buses, aircraft and ships at any location. It provides a maximum charging capacity of 88 kilowatts. The charging station is compatible with seven different charging standards and plugs to ensure flexibility when travelling. Cooling and high efficiency are ensured by silicon carbide semiconductors with low switching losses, a sophisticated circuit topology and an innovative air cooling system.
DC charger with storage unit
With the Net Zero series, Xcharge Europe has developed a DC charging station in which the battery is already integrated. The system consists of two charge points with a maximum charging capacity of 210 kilowatts. The integrated battery storage system can temporarily store 233 kilowatt hours of electricity and make it available when required. It can be doubled to 466 kilowatt hours. The integrated storage unit reduces the connected load required for the charging station to between 30 and 60 kilowatts. In order to provide the maximum charging power under such conditions, the storage unit supports the station with an output of 150 kilowatts. A battery-to-grid function ensures that the storage unit can feed unused energy back into the grid.
Load management for company fleets
Beyond the pure hardware for charging electric vehicles, the Vcharm charging management system from Vector Informatik also made it to the final. This is a system consisting of cloud-based software and a controller. Thanks to a local fallback level, it can also control the charging process offline despite being cloud-based. The load management should be compatible with all charging stations that have the common OCPP standard. This is necessary for communication between the car and the charging station. The system can also be integrated into existing infrastructures. It distributes the charging current flexibly and according to the respective requirements, either statically or actually dynamically. It also takes flexible electricity tariffs into account.
Platform for mobility services
The Dutch company Road has developed the Private Label for mobility providers. It is a software-as-a-service solution that eliminates the need to develop your own technology. This is because the SaaS platform designed as an API is fully customisable and offers open interfaces. This means that the services can be tailored to the company's own business requirements and the needs of its customers. It can be integrated into various business management, customer service and billing programmes as an API. It can also dock onto charge point management platforms and intelligent energy management systems and supports management using RFID cards. This enables the development of customised user interfaces, mobile applications and the integration of payment providers. The platform covers all applicable regulatory requirements and has a modular structure. This allows companies to tailor the platform to their needs and only use the services they actually need. (su/mfo)
