The new DC charging solution offers flexible charging power of up to 480 kilowatts at six pillars

If a company operates a fleet of e-trucks and e-cars, it also needs the appropriate charging infrastructure.

Until now, these have mostly been separate charging points for trucks and cars, as e-trucks can take up much higher charging power than most e-cars. So why not a charging point with flexible charging capacities? The charging infrastructure provider elexon from Aachen presented one in September at the IAA Transportation. At up to six charging points on up to three pillars, the charging power can be flexibly selected between 80 and 480 kilowatts.
  
So up to six charging points can be connected to the base station, the so-called "PowerBank". This way, up to six vehicles can charge at the same time, with a maximum of 480 kilowatts or 500 amps. So an e-truck can use the full 480 kilowatts, or two e-cars 160 kilowatts each and two more 80 kilowatts. Or six electric cars, each with 80 kilowatts. The connected energy management system distributes the total charging power to all connected charging points accordingly.

"Currently available charging solutions of this type usually offer five or fewer charging points and reduce the use to two columns when the charging power is high. The other charging points cannot be used during this time," explains Nurhan Rizqy Averous, Head of Product Development & Engineering at elexon. With elexon's charging solution, all charging points can be used at the same time, which would be a decisive selling point for customers. Elexon currently offers the largest number of terminals per base station on the European market. The number of charging points can be expanded or reduced by six at a time to react to fleet changes.

Another advantage is that the PowerBank is lighter and more compact than an all-in-one unit and can also be placed out of sight and hearing range of the charging situation (up to 100 metres away). The modular design also increases the ease of maintenance. If a power module fails, the total power is reduced by only 20 kilowatts. The module can be replaced in a few minutes, also thanks to the low weight of fewer than ten kilograms per power module.

With the 480 kilowatt DC column, elexon, therefore, covers all currently available charging capacities of e-cars and e-trucks. If several vehicles want to charge at the same time, they simply share the charging power.