MR Berlin takes off

© Jan Pauls

The MR Pow­er Qual­i­ty Con­vert­ers team is devel­op­ing fresh ideas for the new mar­kets of tomor­row at the for­mer Tegel Air­port in Berlin.


The ener­gy mar­ket is chang­ing. Where­as pure AC grids used to dom­i­nate, we now live in a hybrid world with decen­tral­ized gen­er­a­tors such as solar and wind pow­er plants sup­ply­ing DC volt­age, and con­sumers such as e‑vehicle charg­ing sta­tions using it. Local DC grids are there­fore an effi­cient solu­tion for bet­ter net­work­ing of this hybrid world. This means coor­di­nat­ing ener­gy pro­duc­ers and con­sumers, and con­nect­ing them with min­i­mal loss­es and with­out any con­ver­sion process­es. Such an approach allows costs to be saved in a vari­ety of ways, both in the con­struc­tion of the infra­struc­ture and in oper­a­tion.

“DC tech­nol­o­gy pays off for fleet providers in par­tic­u­lar for whom the total cost of own­er­ship, or TCO for short, is rel­e­vant.”

Kim Urbanke, Pow­er Qual­i­ty Con­vert­ers Sales

These new, excit­ing mar­ket areas for pow­er elec­tron­ics in the low-volt­age range require suit­able sys­tem solu­tions — the right task for the team at MR Pow­er Qual­i­ty Con­vert­ers in Berlin. For­mer­ly part of AEG, it has been part of MR for over 20 years and, in recent years, has con­tin­ued to devel­op in line with mar­ket require­ments. For exam­ple, with its mod­u­lar active fil­ter for bal­anc­ing cur­rent and volt­age fluc­tu­a­tions in AC grids or its mod­u­lar pow­er con­vert­er for bat­tery stor­age in hybrid grids.

With the GRIDCON® DC prod­ucts, the Berlin-based com­pa­ny launched new prod­ucts on the mar­ket in 2023, with which it is tap­ping into a future mar­ket by enabling the con­nec­tion of DC gen­er­a­tors, stor­age sys­tems and con­sumers to a local DC grid. The new GRIDCON® DC Charg­er, for exam­ple, offers a charg­ing infra­struc­ture for cars and com­mer­cial vehi­cles. “DC grids are cur­rent­ly the sub­ject of much dis­cus­sion and are in high demand from cus­tomers,” says Kim Urbanke from Pow­er Qual­i­ty Con­vert­ers Sales. “Cus­tomers are look­ing for ever more effi­cient sys­tems and at the same time our sales part­ners are look­ing for inno­v­a­tive approach­es with which they can dif­fer­en­ti­ate them­selves even bet­ter from their com­peti­tors.”

“We are char­ac­ter­ized by a high lev­el of tech­ni­cal exper­tise and spe­cial­ized knowl­edge.”

Kim Urbanke, Pow­er Qual­i­ty Con­vert­ers Sales

The demand for a fast and ener­gy-effi­cient charg­ing infra­struc­ture is par­tic­u­lar­ly high in the e‑mobility sec­tor. Retail­ers are equip­ping their park­ing lots with charg­ing points, and logis­tics providers and local pub­lic trans­port are also look­ing for suit­able solu­tions. Kim Urbanke explains: “DC tech­nol­o­gy pays off for fleet providers in par­tic­u­lar for whom the total cost of own­er­ship, or TCO for short, is rel­e­vant. In oth­er words, the total cost of oper­a­tion. What does a kilo­me­ter dri­ven with elec­tric­i­ty cost com­pared to diesel?”

Accord­ing to Urbanke, depot solu­tions with self-gen­er­at­ed and tem­porar­i­ly stored solar pow­er are already sig­nif­i­cant­ly cheap­er than fos­sil fuels in many appli­ca­tions. The MR range is not lim­it­ed to e‑mobility, how­ev­er. Indus­tri­al com­pa­nies can also use the prod­ucts to con­vert parts of their grid to DC volt­age, there­by increas­ing the effi­cien­cy of their over­all grid and sav­ing costs.

The 40-strong team of expe­ri­enced and young col­leagues is not short of fresh ideas. “We are char­ac­ter­ized by a high lev­el of tech­ni­cal exper­tise and spe­cial­ized knowl­edge,” says Urbanke. Cou­pled with cre­ativ­i­ty and inno­v­a­tive strength, this exper­tise is need­ed to devel­op prod­ucts for new mar­kets. “Every­one here is very moti­vat­ed to open up new busi­ness areas and grow,” he empha­sizes. Since the begin­ning of 2023, their loca­tion has been at the for­mer Tegel Air­port, in the Urban Tech Repub­lic, the research and indus­tri­al park for urban tech­nolo­gies that is being built there. Here there is plen­ty of space for their ideas as well as real test envi­ron­ments, such as the Sys­tem Inte­gra­tion Cen­ter, where devel­op­ers can fine-tune new DC sys­tem solu­tions.


Innovative pilot project by MR Power Quality Converters

Refu­el elec­tric­i­ty with­out detours: solar pow­er from the roof for charg­ing sta­tions and com­mer­cial prop­er­ties

1. The Goal

The retail com­pa­ny Buch­bauer wants to cov­er most of the ener­gy sup­ply for a new Ede­ka super­mar­ket and its e‑car charg­ing sta­tions for cus­tomers with low-cost, local­ly gen­er­at­ed solar ener­gy. Despite a lim­it­ed AC grid con­nec­tion, a high-per­for­mance PV sys­tem is to be installed to uti­lize the full poten­tial of the roof and an expand­able range of attrac­tive fast-charg­ing sta­tions is to be set up–without any lengthy and expen­sive grid expan­sion.

Charg­ing elec­tric vehi­cles with cheap solar pow­er direct­ly from the roof — this is already a real­i­ty at Ede­ka Buch­bauer.

2. The Implementation

The pilot project was car­ried out in coop­er­a­tion with the LET Group, a sys­tem inte­gra­tor for DC grids. MR sup­plied its tried, test­ed and cer­ti­fied GRIDCON® PCS invert­er, a new GRIDCON® DC trans­former for direct DC stor­age con­nec­tion, and a GRIDCON® DCC charg­ing sta­tion installed in the DC grid. Jonas Epper­lein, Pow­er Qual­i­ty Con­vert­ers Sales, says: “High­ly effi­cient stor­age sys­tems ensure the nec­es­sary har­mo­ny between low-cost, volatile gen­er­a­tion from local PV sys­tems and the fluc­tu­at­ing demands of e‑mobility.” This pilot project serves as a tem­plate for a cross-sec­tor mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of the PV2V sys­tem approach, for exam­ple in logis­tics or local pub­lic trans­port.

The team led by Matthias Jaco­bi, Head of Pow­er Qual­i­ty Con­vert­ers, devel­ops suit­able sys­tem solu­tions for pow­er elec­tron­ics in the low-volt­age range.

3. The Result

A PV sys­tem with an out­put of 345 kWp was con­nect­ed to the exist­ing 170 kW AC grid con­nec­tion, which would not have been pos­si­ble in a con­ven­tion­al AC grid. Local­ly required elec­tric­i­ty, for exam­ple for charg­ing, is pro­vid­ed direct­ly from the local PV gen­er­a­tion. PV2V (pho­to­volta­ic-2-vehi­cle) sys­tems thus cre­ate a lucra­tive, low-cost charg­ing offer that ensures sat­is­fied cus­tomers and a super­mar­ket that is always full. Excess solar pow­er at times when gen­er­a­tion exceeds demand is stored and con­sumed as soon as pos­si­ble. The effi­cient DC grid con­nec­tion increas­es the yield of the PV sys­tem, sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces stor­age loss­es and enables the expan­sion of the charg­ing infra­struc­ture at exist­ing AC grid con­nec­tions using all local­ly avail­able poten­tial. The max­i­mum uti­liza­tion of local AC grid con­nec­tion capac­i­ties also sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces grid plan­ning efforts and short­ens oth­er­wise time-con­sum­ing approvals for gen­er­a­tion and con­sump­tion sys­tems.


YOUR CONTACT PERSON

Do you have any ques­tions?
Kim Urbanke will be hap­py to advise you:
k.urbanke@reinhausen.com


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