Reinhausen wants to help customers operate their charging station infrastructure economically.
For years, MR has been supplying modular battery inverters which are used, for example, in buffer storage units for charging infrastructure. Building on these, Reinhausen has now brought the high-power charger GRIDCON® HPC to the market. This rapid DC charging system uses galvanically isolated AC/DC converters to enable intelligent load management, the setup of individual DC grids and even the connection to external DC grids. We spoke with Holger Kretzschmar, head of sales for this product segment, and discussed the advantages that come from the direct coupling of charging stations and battery storage units.
Mr. Kretzschmar, what is special about Reinhausen’s strategy for charging infrastructure?
From the beginning, we set the goal of creating the most efficient system possible, with which we can keep the number of conversions between DC and AC current as low as possible and which is simultaneously equipped for the challenges of the future.
Which challenges do you mean specifically?
In order to lead the dynamic start of E‑mo-bility, charging infrastructure will need to be scaled massively in the coming years both through many more charging points and also through higher outputs for busses and cars up to the MW range. In this phase, it becomes significantly more about highly efficient solutions and maximum flexibility. If you carry this to its logical conclusion, you inevitably come to “local DC grids”.
“New approaches are needed to couple DC charging technology with renewable energy production and buffer storage.”
GGRIDCON® HPC is a charging station with a connection to the AC grid on the one hand, but it can also provide a DC grid for other charging stations and for connect ing energy accumulators and PV systems at the same time. The connection to the AC grid can be flexibly dimensioned or even omitted entirely in certain cases.
This opens up many possibilities. On the product side, this type of setup can achieve an enormous efficiency increase. This is because, no matter where you get your energy in the future, whether from a solar system, temporary storage in a battery unit, or from an AC or DC grid, you will only ever need a maximum of two conversion stages. This helps customers to pay less in fees and to avoid unnecessary conversion losses.
Conventional connection to the AC grid.
With technology from Reinhausen: the charging system from Reinhausen that enables more efficient expansion of the charging infrastructure and reduces conversion losses and connection fees. Another advantage of the Reinhausen architecture is that it can be integrated into DC grids or can be used to set up independent DC grids using the integrated inverter.
The flexibility of the system also helps the energy supply grid, which is becoming increasingly strained. Using bidirectional inverters, we can relieve weak grids during peaks or supply them with solar power and even achieve a stabilizing effect on grid faults. This reduces the costs for grid expansion. All of this helps our customers achieve more economical operation or even new business models.
What options do you see here?
For one, locally produced renewable energy can be sold directly to E‑mobility customers with significantly higher margins than purchased electricity from the AC grid. A buffer storage unit can also be used for this, of course, in order to get affordable energy from the grid in times of excess power, for example, and later feed it back into the grids at a higher price.
With the same logic, thanks to our completely bidirectional charging systems, even the unused battery capacity of parked vehicles, for example at a bus depot, can be used to do this. While the latter is still a topic for the future, we can already set up space-saving, affordable solutions for charging these buses and cars today with our innovative approach, both in depots as well as along the route.
YOUR CONTACT
Holger Kretzschmar, Head of Sales — Power Quality Products
H.Kretzschmar@reinhausen.com
