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When the Extreme E off-road EV racing series featured a modular, transportable, off-grid, drop-in DC fast charging station a few years back, it seemed like a niche solution for a niche problem. Well, that was then. The well known serial entrepreneur Victor Shao has just launched a new venture called DC Grid, which aims to splash its new drop-in DC fast charging station solution all around the US, beginning with six sites to be disclosed later.
Drop-In EV Charging Stations Solves Many Problems At Once
Extreme E isn’t the only drop-in EV charging system to cross the CleanTechnica radar in previous years. Another example is the “Boost Charger,” a turnkey charging system developed by the US startup Freewire. In both cases, the idea is to use an energy storage system to soak up and store enough kilowatts to provide DC fast charging for EVs, without the expensive new electrical infrastructure typically required of a grid-connected DCFC station.
The Freewire charging station deploys a battery that can be charged by solar panels on site, or by a normal grid connection. Extreme E took a different approach, deploying a hydrogen fuel cell system, with hydrogen being both the fuel and the storage medium. In accord with the off-grid focus of Extreme E, the hydrogen is produced on site by a solar-powered electrolysis system.
DC Grid has come up with yet another angle, offering multiple power options for its “Authentix™ 300 kW DC/DC Fast Charger” depending on the location. As a drop-in solution, the new EV charging station requires no trenching for new electrical infrastructure, which compresses the installation timeline and cuts costs, too. DC Grid estimates that an Authentix EV hub can be installed in about thee months.
DC Grid is also addressing other markets, including data centers and industrial facilities, but let’s stick with the EV charging station area for now.
The Solar Power Solution
DC Grid is offering onsite solar power with battery storage as one option. The company anticipates that the solar solution will be economical for charging stations in rural areas or along highway corridors, where land is relatively available and inexpensive. The company estimates that a 1-megawatt, DC solar-plus-storage system can be installed in one day, based on a calculation of four acres per megawatt. They also point out that a comparable AC system would take up significantly more land, at about 5.5 acres.
DC Grid’s EV charging station can also operate on biogas or renewable natural gas. DC Grid proposes those solutions for use in urban areas and other locations where gas infrastructure is already available, while land for solar arrays is scarce and/or expensive.
The company also notes that its EV charging station can run on natural gas. To date, it has signed installation agreements for six sites, so it will be interesting to see where natural gas option falls in comparison to biogas, RNG, and solar-plus-storage.
What’s The Big Deal About A Drop-In EV Charging Station?
As for why bother with a drop-in solution when the nation’s grid-connected EV charging station network is already growing, that’s a good question.
DC Grid notes that the pace of EV charging station construction is being slowed by bottlenecks in utility interconnections and upgrades. “By providing end-to-end, direct current (DC) based, off-grid, modular energy systems, DC Grid bypasses traditional utility delays and accelerates electrification,” the company explains.
The quick installation time is another benefit. “These portable systems are rapidly deployable, assembled onsite without construction, and provide immediate power solutions,” DC Grid notes. Its EV charging station system eliminates the need to dig new trenches because it is fully above ground, which also streamlines the permitting process in addition to cutting construction costs.
As for the DC angle, the company notes that its system can save up to 20% of energy normally lost in converting to DC current from an AC system, along with a 33% savings at the transmission and distribution end.
“While AC has been the backbone of our current grid and served us well for the last century, it is now too cumbersome in addressing modern energy demands,” DC Grid emphasizes.
A Better Grid For More EV Charging Stations
The entire US grid isn’t going to switch from AC to DC any time soon, but the US Department Energy is on the prowl for solutions under a new grant program called Disruptive DC Converters for Grid Resilient Infrastructure to Deliver Sustainable energy, or DC-GRIDS for short. The $38 million program is administered by the agency’s ARPA-E funding office for new high risk, high reward technologies.
The program aims to foster the nation’s long-delayed transition to an MT-HVDC grid, which is short for “multi-terminal high-voltage direct current.”
“DC-GRIDS projects will develop high-voltage direct current transmission technology that could enable a 250% capacity increase over existing transmission infrastructure,” ARPA-E Director Evelyn N. Wang emphasized in a press statement last month.
“The U.S. may require a 3-4x transmission capacity expansion in the coming decades to accommodate increasingly geographically dispersed generation, electrification, and exponential increases in power demand from data centers,” ARPA-E additionally noted.
In an interesting twist, ARPA-E also notes that the MT-HVDC grid of the future will provide for resiliency and performance enhancements across the nation, by interconnecting the three US electrical grids more efficiently. The interconnection improvements would also help shuttle more renewable energy around the country, including electricity from offshore wind farms.
That reference to “three” grids by ARPA-E is…interesting. Three grids encompass all of the contiguous US except for Texas, which is an electricity island unto itself. That’s by choice, not by accident. When the US grid system was organized under federal regulation in the 1990s, state legislators in Texas decided that they would rather not submit to federal oversight (see more Texas grid background here).
Apparently ARPA-E anticipates that officials in Texas will not change their minds any time soon, MT-HVDC or not.
On the upside, though, Texas could become a rich market for drop-in EV charging station solutions. That would be of a piece with the state’s growing reputation for attracting new technologies that make the most of in-state resources.
If you have any thoughts about that, drop a note in the comment thread.
Photo (cropped): The new EV charging station solution from DC Grid combines DC fast charging technology with quick and simple no-trench installation (courtesy of DC Grid via email to CleanTechnica).
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