Shell will trial a battery-backed ultra-fast charging system at a Dutch filling station, with tentative plans to adopt the format more widely to ease the grid pressures likely to come with mass-market electric vehicle adoption.
By boosting the output of the chargers from the battery, the impact on the grid is dramatically reduced. That means avoiding expensive grid infrastructure upgrades. It also eases some of the pressure on local grid operators as they race to make net-zero carbon ambitions possible.
The system will be provided by fellow Dutch firm Alfen. The two 175-kilowatt chargers at the Zaltbommel site will draw on a 300-kilowatt/360-kilowatt-hour battery system. Shell portfolio companies Greenlots and NewMotion will provide the software management.
The battery is optimized to charge when renewable production is high to keep both prices and carbon content low. The company describes the savings from avoiding grid upgrades as “significant.”
Shell is targeting an EV network of 500,000 chargers by 2025, up from around 60,000 today. Its pilot site will provide the data to inform the possibility of a wider rollout of the battery-backed approach. No timeline has been set on that rollout, a Shell spokesperson confirmed.
Using a battery to support fast EV charging can save time as well as installation and operation costs. Grid constraints are substantial in the Netherlands, especially on the distribution network. Distribution network operators in the U.K. have moved to head off potential constraints as the nation’s EV rollout has gathered pace.
In order to make money when it’s not helping to ease grid stress from EV charging, the battery will also participate in a virtual power plant via the Greenlots FlexCharge platform.
The battery-led approach is similar to that pursued by U.S. startup FreeWire Technologies. The California-based firm raised $25 million last April to commercialize its Boost Charger, which has a 120-kilowatt output backed up with a 160 kWh battery.
U.K. firm Gridserve is building 100 dedicated “Electric Forecourts” (filling stations in American parlance) in the next five years, with fast-charging supported by the companies’ own solar-plus-storage projects.
EDF’s Pivot Power is building storage assets close to vital EV charging loads. It believes EV charging could represent 30 percent of each battery’s revenue.
Post time: Mar-15-2021