Electric vehicles are set to take over internal combustion engines due to lower cost, decarbonization, and the fact that they can be sustainably powered. Typical diesel vans cost €0.09/km but using grid-charged electric vans costs €0.05/km.
However, the significant challenge remains how governments and companies can use existing infrastructure to supply the intense needs of electric charging.
A hybrid system consisting of solar and battery energy storage can immediately help decrease the cost of electricity and aid in providing the additional load for EV charging stations. This system is also an attractive investment opportunity while avoiding expensive grid infrastructure upgrades.
The logistics company has a daily office consumption of 400 kWh which relies mainly on the grid. Due to recent purchases of EV’s for delivery and increasing costs of electricity from the grid, the company is looking at constructing a charging station for the delivery vans. After investigating the location, load profile, and local government policies, a customer-specific load profile is made as shown below.
The blue line represents the electric charging load which has to charge up to 30 vehicles within an 8-10 hour window before morning. Using very accurate simulation software, Volstora identified a 1500kWh energy storage system with a 500kWp of solar panel installation as effective for the customer and reduces the cost of electricity to €0.05 /kWh.
The customer would produce up to 617 MWh using the hybrid solar and storage system and would only require a backup system for the remaining 35 MWh with maximum power requirement from the grid during December, January, and March between 23:00 – 02:00.
The initial cost of solar installation is estimated as € 0.4/Wp and the cost of complete ESS including the solar inverter results in a total investment of € 700,000. The cost of electricity from the grid is € 0.18/kWh with a 5.2% annual tariff increase and a feed-in tariff of €0.05/kWh.
Instead of spending an estimated €100,000 to increase the grid capacity, the customer has a sustainable system that can charge without overloading the grid connection. The payback
This data puts the system’s payback period at 4.8 years with an approximate annualized ROI of 7.4%.
Typical commercial batteries have a payback of 5-7 years which makes the system unfeasible. However, the Volstora provides an attractive ROI due to the extremely low degradation and lifetime that matches the solar investment.
Additionally – Volstora has stable titanium chemistry that is inert. Safety is best demonstrated in the video available here.
Problem – Electric vehicle charging puts strain on existing infrastructure and increases electricity costs.
Process – Volstora analyzed system sizing to avoid infrastructure upgrades and maximize self-consumption
Results – The system energy price was reduced from €0.16/kWh to €0.05/kWh which is a cost per km of approximately €0.012!
