ADS-TEC Energy wins Red Dot Design Award

Diverse Functionalities in One Device

What makes a product that collects three awards in one year? ChargePost is a battery-buffered fast-charging station that combines various functionalities in one device in addition to charging. This is reminiscent of the smartphone principle: It can do more than just charge.

The system was developed by storage pioneer ADS-TEC Energy in Nürtingen and is also produced in-house in Germany. As a system platform, the charging station enables ultra-fast charging of electric vehicles within minutes, even at power-limited grid connections.

In Europe, hundreds of fast-charging points have already been created with the ChargePost from ADS-TEC Energy. Thanks to the integrated battery storage system, energy from the power-limited low-voltage grid can be stored and boosted to high-performance charging current as needed. The battery technology allows charging at up to 300 kW, even if the available power of the electricity connection is many times lower. This applies to many vehicles per day—in practice, even very high-frequency locations have proven successful, and dozens of vehicles could even be fast-charged in one day. Charging quantities of more than 1 MW per day were achieved using the storage, while the grid only supplied its electricity in the range of the available low connection power. An expensive, time-consuming, and resource-intensive grid expansion, as required for a conventional fast-charging station, is thus unnecessary.

Additionally, ordinary fast chargers can only be used for the sale of charging power, while ChargePost offers operators of charging infrastructure additional business models and thus a wealth of options to financially optimize the operation. For example, if self-produced electricity from a PV system is used for charging, the energy procurement costs for the operators are reduced—contrary to the trend of steadily rising grid fees. Another option is to use the bidirectional battery in ChargePost for grid-supportive purposes, such as peak load shaving of a site or feeding it back into the grid.

Another promising option is to connect multiple charging stations to form a so-called virtual power plant. In this way, the operator has a large energy storage system whose energy can be used as flexibility and traded on the electricity market. For example, volatile electricity prices are used to positively influence the operation of the infrastructure and thus make money, even when no car is being charged.

ADS-TEC Energy continues to improve its platform: Most recently, the company presented an optional cable suspension at Power2Drive Europe, as well as a roof fixture and a new variant with longer charging cables, resulting in improved charging performance for the 400-V vehicle class. This increases the performance from the current 200 A to a maximum of 400 A with a constant current of 375 A. This makes minute-fast charging possible in places such as rural areas far from highways and charging parks, or in inner cities.