Energy Storage Systems Boost Electric Vehicles’ Fast Charger Infrastructure

Technical Article Overview

Electric vehicles (EVs) will gain more and more market share, eventually taking over internal combustion engine vehicles. Direct current (dc) fast charging stations will replace, or integrate, petrol stations. Renewable energies will be used to power them, such as solar and wind. People will desire to charge their EVs in less than 15 minutes and they won’t want to wait in a queue for a unique charging pile. Considering multiple charging piles, the charging peak power that the grid will have to locally provide is more than 1 MW. The grid can collapse in many points, or huge investments are needed to improve the transmission lines and the central power plants needed to supply a much higher base load. This load, however, is impulsive and must be merged with the intermittent energy generated by renewable sources such as solar and wind. Energy storage systems can solve this problem in a simple and elegant way. We use fluids like petrol or gasses to store energy and reuse it when needed (for example, when fueling a car). With the same principle, we can store electric energy in batteries using electrons and chemistry. This energy can be then utilized to boost an EV charge to keep the grid stable by shaving the peaks of power or to provide supply in case of blackout.