Energy supplier Vattenfall, together with the Municipality of Amsterdam and Heijmans, is installing fast chargers in a parking lot in the capital, where sixteen cars can quickly charge at the same time. A kind of ‘buffer battery’ is the smart element of this.
Vattenfall is doing something similar with the charging stations to what Shell has already put into practice together with Alfen. At the P+R on Zeeburgereiland in Amsterdam, sixteen electric cars can be charged simultaneously without running the risk of overloading the electricity grid, thanks to a battery that acts as a buffer between the grid and the charging stations.
That battery, called a ‘charging hub’ by Vattenfall, has a capacity of 336 kWh. The charging electric cars draw their power from this via a fast charger. The large battery is then gradually recharged from the mains for the next batch of customers. According to Vattenfall, an important advantage is that this approach also makes fast charging possible in places where the electricity grid would normally not be able to handle this due to the high peak load.
Vattenfall will thoroughly analyze this charging station and approach over the next five years. This should provide insight into how this principle can work as efficiently as possible. The aim is to subsequently deploy such batteries in more places.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl