E-MOBILITY! And where is the grid?

INTRO

This article does not have the ambition to judge the position of EV followers vs. Petrol heads. This article does not even have the ambition to tell you, what sort of mobility solutions you should choose either.

But this article will give you a quick look to the backstage. This article will give you an essence, what it takes to make EV attractive, safe & independent.

And besides uncovering the hidden facts, we will use a Gridserve′s Braintree Electric Forecourt as an example, which is worth to follow.

CHARGING IS SIMPLE. REALLY?

When you treat yourself with your first e-car, most probably, you also get yourself a charging wall-box at your home, or possibly at your work location. So far so good.

But one of the frequent arguments of the Petrol Heads is that the driving range is limited, and planning your charging stops during long journeys is anything, but not fun.

To certain point, I have an understanding for that. Typically, when I need to fuel my diesel, I do not spend more than few minutes before I hit the road again. And sorry to say that, I really do not need to use a bathroom, smoke a cigarette, drink a coffee and eat a sandwich always, when making a "pit-stop". Simply said, there is no reason for me to stay at the gas-station longer, than necessary.

For the EV owners, the situation is relatively simple today. Many of the highway gas-stations have few charging points aside, where the EV guys can do their procedure, use a bathroom, smoke a cigarette, drink a coffee and eat their sandwich...

With an undoubtedly growing rate of e-cars, the pressure for extension of the charging pits will grow, and so will the pressure to minimize the charging times, respectively, increase the charging capacity. And here we come to the point, which can easily bring us to certain limits. The limit is called (existing) Grid Capacity. Adding charging pits just about anywhere is not a big deal as long as the capacity of the grid allows us to do so.

In case of the observed Braintree Electric Forecourt, we speak of a current going above 5.3MW at one moment, if all the charging pits would be in the operation. This is a huge amount of energy that needs to be transmitted through the cable networks, and there is no way to outsource such a high demand from a typical public network in most of the places.

This means that constructing such a network requires calculations and cable engineering which is done with precision and with the respect to the location, characteristics and complexity of the whole charging location. The task is clear - to allow as much current flowing through the conductors, so the cars can be energized fast, but safely.

If you see an alley of chargers like the one on the picture, you can bet that in case of the full occupancy, the monitoring software will reduce the charging performance (speed) of each pit automatically in order to avoid overheating or dangerous accidents while charging.

Coming to the beginning - having a street of villas, where an e-car will be here and there is not a problem. Having a street of villas, where each house will have 2-3 cars connected to the grid for charging every night will be a problem, but somehow easy to solve. Having a large apartment complex with hundreds of parking lots underground and the task to equip 50% of the parking lots with a wall box will be a huge problem. Not even talking about conversion of huge parking lots in shopping malls, civic centers or airports into "EV-friendly" solutions...

SIAMESE TRIPLETS - PHOTOVOLTAICS BATTERY STORAGE EV CHARGING

The transmission capacity of the main grid has it′s solution - battery storage! We are talking about huge sets of batteries typically provided in a container-sizes. Actually, the electricity flowing to the cars is not coming from the grid directly, but from the battery storage. The batteries help to avoid high peak risks, and are usually being charged from the grid in the low peak times.

In order to make the whole concept even more exciting, there are solutions coming up which will be completely independent on existing grid, and the "Electricity Stations" will be powered by photovoltaic powerplant located right next to the location. Concepts like that have been already announced, and we can expect those to be more and more common.

In fact, the combination of PV, Storage and EV already works quite well in the residential market, as a big majority of the e-car owners typically have PV on their roof, and therefore, use PV as a main source for charging the cars. The commercial (large scale) charging stations will be based on the same principle.

To wrap-up this chapter - imagination of EV sockets to be everywhere will stay as an imagination for at least few more decades. Technically, it is not possible to adopt the changes in our grid that quickly. However, the solutions for building up an independent charging oasis exists, and will be visible more in the future.

SAFE? Yes! INDEPENDENT? Yes! AND BEAUTIFUL? Let′s take a look!

In the beginning, we mentioned that making the stops for charging can be boring, but see, how the reality could look like....

The core of charging at Gridserve Braintree Electric Forecourt offers 12 charging pits with the capacity up to 350kW, another 12 charging pits up to 90kW

Several Tesla chargers and a series of long-term chargers.

The Forecourt itself offers a wide variety of things to do...

Refreshments & shopping area belong to the standard of all Electricity/Gas stations, but what comes on top of it?

Private business meeting boxes or separated resting areas can be booked in advance for the desired timeframe

The Forecourt offers a large variety of resting area, and even new e-car can be purchased here!

The respect for renewables is visible everywhere. Besides the whole building has a rooftop PV installation, the charging pits are sheltered with PV array as well.

The PV generated electricity goes to the large scale battery storage

And besides some exercise, you can also contribute, and add some energy to the batteries by pedaling for a while....

Let′s wait, what the future will bring us in terms of the e-mobility. But if the transition shall be as pleasant as what we could see at Gridserve Braintree Electric Forecourt, why not?!