EnBW to build largest public HPC park in Europe
EnBW is planning a large-scale charging park at Kamener Kreuz in North Rhine-Westphalia. It will have 52 HPC charging points with a capacity of up to 300 kW, making it the largest public fast-charging park in Europe, according to the energy company.
The opening of the park at the Kamen interchange, where the A1 and A2 meet, is planned for the fourth quarter of this year. The site will be located directly at the Kamen exit (exit 15 of motorway 2), where EnBW says there are restaurants and shopping outlets in the immediate vicinity in addition to the “highly frequented long-distance traffic arteries”. On the graphic sent along by EnBW, the HPC Park appears to be embedded in a commercial area.
The facility is described by EnBW as a “flagship charging park” – analogous to the charging park in Rutesheim on the A8 that will open in October 2020. The project at Kamener Kreuz also has a number of things in common with this location: as in Rutesheim, the charging points will be roofed and illuminated. A photovoltaic system is also planned, which will supply the site near Kamen with electricity with a capacity of up to 120 kilowatts and feed surplus energy into the local grid. In addition, there will be a toilet on site – according to the energy provider, this is in response to a frequently expressed customer wish.
However, there is one big difference in the used dimensions. While there are eight charging points in Rutesheim, 52 are planned at the Kamener Kreuz. “The location in Kamen shows the quality and progress in the expansion of the charging infrastructure in Germany,” says Timo Sillober, Chief Sales and Operations Officer at EnBW. “Where today there is still a green field, in around half a year more than 50 cars will be able to fast charge at the same time.”
Charging processes are likely to be billed according to the usual conditions in EnBW’s “hypergrid”. In the normal tariff, this is €0.49/kWh at DC chargers, in the discounted tariff it is €0.39/kWh. As is the case at all other EnBW charging points, 100 per cent green electricity will also flow at Kamener Kreuz.
In contrast to most charging parks near motorways, EnBW operates the facilities in Rutesheim and at Kamener Kreuz itself. Up to now, the energy group has usually installed fast chargers at service stations in cooperation with companies such as Tank & Rast. At the Werratal Süd service station on the A4 in Hesse, EnBW installed three Hyperchargers in mid-September 2020 directly next to the pumps for conventional fuels.
By 2025, EnBW wants to operate 2,500 fast-charging locations nationwide. Since the beginning of 2020 alone, the company says it has completed 13 large fast-charging parks nationwide as well as more than 350 fast-charging locations, primarily in urban and suburban areas. The company also states that it has an additional 50 large sites in the realisation and project planning stages and is currently planning a further 300 to 400 smaller fast-charging sites. EnBW is investing 100 million euros annually in the nationwide expansion of the fast-charging infrastructure.
With reporting by Sebastian Schaal, Germany.
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