An eLumina DS400 ultra fast charger was officially opened for business in a small ceremony last Friday.
This battery integrated EV charger is the first of its kind to be owned and commissioned by a private customer for public use anywhere in Australia and fills a significant charging gap in Perth’s southern residential and light industrial area of Cockburn.
Attendees included the Cockburn mayor, Logan Howlett, Hon. Josh Wilson the Federal Member for Fremantle and Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy, and Dr Brad Pettitt, leader of the Greens in the WA Legislative Council.
Jon Edwards has installed the charger at an industrial unit he owns and leases out. Jon was aware that (yet again) as a pioneer there would be difficulties and therefore chose to simplify things by fully funding the project himself, thereby eliminating delays related to grants and government processes.
He proceeded after a successful 16 month trial of a smaller eLumina D1 charger open to public charging at his main workshop in O’Connor. This unit proved to be reliable and robust, and in Jon’s words, moving to the bigger charger was “a no-brainer”.
The DS400 is set up with two dispensers, each with two charger cables. One car can charge at a maximum of 250kW, two at 180kW each, three at 120kW and four at 90kW each.
The battery charges with AC power up to 70kW. This is provided by a 70kW PV array supplying a Sigenergy 100kW inverter derated to 70 and a 240kWh Sigenergy battery stack plus a backup 70kW grid connection as power of last resort.
In addition, there is a 30kW direct DC solar PV feed into the DS400, with an MPPT replacing one of the DC output slots. This slightly reduces the battery’s maximum output power from 400 to 360kW.
The beauty of this power arrangement is that apart from minimising grid draw, it will continue to work when the grid fails or where there is no grid power, provided that the load doesn’t exceed the capacity of 100kW PV to replenish the two batteries.
Jon has not done any research into the likely customer base, but has taken a risk that the presence of this charger will increase the uptake of domestic and light commercial EV trucks in the area. He expects around 30 charging sessions per day, and at full use estimates that it will reduce diesel use by 250,000 litres per year.
The project was pioneering and raised a number of issues and lessons around how councils deal with what is really a major infrastructure project.
The elephant in the room for me is that a private individual has designed, financed and built an ultra fast charging system which is capable of operating off grid when our WA EV network off grid network chargers continue to fail.
The extent of this failure is now on public view thanks to a superb website developed by Harald Murphy from Tesla Owners Club WA showing each charger in real time: waevn.tocwa.cloud
Jon’s new charger is at 32 Poletti Rd Cockburn and is on Chargefox.
