Delta cooperated with a charging point operator (CPO) to jointly build charging infrastructure for a shopping mall in Central Europe. Combining a DC Ultra Fast Charger with a battery energy storage system, the solution supplies rapid charging for EVs and reduces power grid impact by aiding malls in providing customers with improved charging facilities.
Project Background
In recent years, countries around the world have proposed energy policies and targets to ensure environmental sustainability while reducing carbon emissions. Some countries are even planning to gradually phase out standard-fuel vehicles. With governments stimulating EV sales with price subsidies or tax reductions, major automakers have established EV development plans and have successively introduced new vehicles, further driving the overall EV market.
However, when it comes to EVs, vehicle owners today primarily remain concerned about charging convenience, charging times, and mileage. To eliminate doubts and increase the penetration rate of EVs, charging infrastructure construction has become a key point of attention for CPOs and site owners, whose primary concerns include determining an approach for installing charging facilities at existing sites, managing power distribution environments, accounting for power capacity constraints, reducing the impact of power supply spikes on the grid, and balancing operational efficiency and service quality.
Project Requirements
A CPO for EV charging stations in Slovakia and Poland has charging sites installed in many locations, including city streets, parking lots, shopping centers, freeways, and intercity highways. For this project, Delta’s EV charging infrastructure solution was adopted to develop a fast-charging station for a shopping mall. Initially, the mall was originally equipped with one charger that could charge only one EV at a time. With the growing popularity of EVs, existing charging facilities were insufficient to meet demand.
To provide customers with faster and easy-to-use charging services, the mall sought to expand its charging infrastructure under the premise that it would not affect existing power allocation and parking lot turnover.
System Introduction and Product Offerings
To allow for rapid charging, synchronous service to multiple EVs, and reducing impact on the power grid, Delta’s Ultra Fast Charger was adopted in order to supply 50 kW of DC charging capacity to customers. Combining Delta’s Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) as a buffer for the grid to cope with power demand at peak times, the solution offers flexibility with overall power dispatching.
Delta’s EV Ultra Fast Charger is compatible with major European charging standards such as DC CCS2, CHAdeMO, and AC Type 2. It also supports dynamic load distribution. This means that when only one EV is charging, it will receive the entire power output; by contrast, when multiple vehicles are charging at the same time, dynamic load distribution is implemented to dispatch power across all EVs. This reduces charging times by allowing the charger to simultaneously charge up to four EVs at once. Additionally, the modular design of the Ultra Fast Charger means that it can be upgraded to a 150-kW output, allowing for future upgrades. Delta’s powerful system design capability provides excellent energy conversion efficiency for DC fast charging, decreasing the required energy consumption and saving costs for the CPO while reducing future equipment investment and total cost of ownership.
To meet the power demand for EV charging, a 52-kW BESS and Energy Management System were adopted for this solution. With energy storage equipment as a buffer, Delta’s Ultra Fast Charger was able to draw power from the battery or grid to supply electricity to customer EVs. This approach was able to effectively mitigate the impact on the grid during peak periods. Furthermore, the BESS was able to integrate renewable energy to generate electricity. Through the monitoring and dispatching of the Energy Management System, solar power was able to be stored in batteries and then supplied to EVs when electricity prices are high, leaving EV charging to the grid when electricity prices are more economical. This kind of electricity dispatching not only reduces impact on the grid but also balances operating costs and service quality.
Conclusion
Nowadays, sites around the world are looking to expand their charging infrastructure, with the goal of reducing carbon emissions through the popularization of EVs. In addition to being utilized in shopping centers, Delta’s solution of combining DC Ultra Fast Charger with their BESS can also facilitate urban infrastructure construction, particularly on intercity roads, freeways, and other locations where EV fast-charging stations can be constructed to efficiently supply electricity to EVs and stabilize energy grids, thus promoting environmental sustainability in metropolitan areas.
From 2019, Delta is planning to launch a new generation of DC City Chargers around the world. The product will provide a dual-charging output of 50 or 100 kW, offering support for mainstream charging standards such as CCS1, CCS2, CHAdeMO, GB/T, and AC Type2. In addition, the chargers will offer configurable dynamic load distribution and will be able to connect to back-end management via the OCPP protocol, thus facilitating the remote management of multiple charging stations. Extending user authentication and energy management applications will address concerns from EV owners, specifically those related to convenient charging. For CPOs, this solution is expected to maximize operational benefits.