Planet Ark Power has partnered with South Australia’s Commercial Retail Group to launch its first Electric Vehicle Charging HUB, which is the first of its kind in the State.

The EV charger integrated with a battery energy storage system will be the first built at a South Australian shopping centre.

The partnership will see fourteen electric vehicle chargers installed at Pasadena Shopping Centre including six Rapid and eight Fast Charging Stations along with a 1MW/1.25MWh battery energy storage system BESS integrated with eleXsys Energy Units which are connected to the electricity grid.

The South Australian Government is supporting the rollout with a grant of $803,000 as part of its Electric Vehicle Smart Charging Trial.

The Rapid points will provide an ultra-fast charge to EV vehicles and can fully charge a car between 15 and 45 minutes. The Fast points will provide a fast charge and can fully charge a car in 2 to 4 hours, depending on the vehicle type. Combined they will provide 476kW of vehicle charging.

The BESS will be charged from the grid at peak solar production times and stored for EV driving customers of the Pasadena Shopping Centre including Foodland Pasadena and the wider community, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

In addition to the BESS providing the EV chargers with electricity, the BESS will perform four other key functions

1. ‘Community Battery’ storage services
   A Community Battery benefits the entire community, it improves power reliability and quality and soaks up any excess solar generation in communities with high solar penetration – like the suburb of Pasadena.
2. Electricity grid support and contingency services
   The BESS with eleXsys technology enables a greater two-way flow of power, creating a true two-way grid, enabling greater penetration of renewables.
3. Frequency services
   The BESS will be providing Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) to the distribution grid and due to the introduction of 5-minute settlements by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) in October last year, battery owners can now take advantage of Energy Arbitrage.
4. Enables ultra-fast charging
   Ordinarily ultra-fast charging EV’s from the grid would put too much pressure on the network, thus requiring costly upgrades, and impeding the roll out of ultra-fast charging for EV’s. However, the eleXsys / BESS enables ultra-fast charging by replacing the grid as the source of electricity from the network and being able to deliver up to 1MW of power, far beyond the power requirements of the proposed charging system.