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Electric car charging station with photovoltaic carport and fuel cell

Our system for charging electric vehicles is characterised by the fact that the entire control technology of the charging points (in our case there are 16) is housed in a single control cabinet (instead of charging columns); only fixed cables with Type 2 connectors go to the vehicles. The system comes from chargeBIG, a corporate start-up of the automotive supplier MAHLE. The system has clear cost advantages per charging point: the more connections, the more interesting. Using dynamic, phase-specific load management, the available charging power is distributed to the parked vehicles by a central control unit. We react flexibly to other consumers in the grid and use the electric vehicles as a controllable load. This enables optimal use of the available electricity grid.

Since ISC Konstanz has a very volatile load profile, we prefer not to use electric mobility as an additional load during vehicle charging, but instead regulate the charging current so that the charging processes have a balancing effect on the load profile. Therefore, the institute’s current power consumption (minus the generation rates from PV systems and fuel cells as well as the charging infrastructure) is transmitted at very short intervals. The power still available is then intelligently distributed to the connected vehicles. In this way, a large number of charging points can be provided at a single grid node (local grid transformer) in spite of already connected high consumers.

Half of the charging points are located directly in front of our photovoltaic façade on the south side of the hall. One charging point is reserved for our company car. The remaining seven connections are located in the entrance area of the office building and are covered with ZEBRA solar modules. If the sun does not provide enough energy, our methanol fuel cell, which is integrated into the system, comes into play.

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