Tritium launches fast-charging line with shared microgrid

The Australian charging station manufacturer Tritium has presented a new series of fast-charging stations under the PKM label. The unique selling point is a shared power supply for the charging points. The first product in the new series is the PKM150 with up to 150 kW charging power.

Tritium says the PKM line is designed to “break the linear relationship” between the power conversion that manages the site’s grid connection and the power of the charger itself. In other words, a DC microgrid is designed as a central source of converted DC power at the site to supply all the charging points there.

Until now, each charging point has had its own control cabinet in the background. Tritium says less equipment will be needed on-site with the new layout because the infrastructure will be shared. On the one hand, this should make it cheaper to build and operate charging parks, allowing operators to build more charging stations. On the other hand, the new concept is also expected to increase flexibility for CPOs: Tritium promises that sites can be sized for today’s demand and easily scaled later.

The resulting microgrid at the site transmits power at 950 volts DC. With the higher voltage level – even if the connected vehicle is only charging at 400 volts – Tritium aims to reduce the cable cross-section by half, “which can result in savings of up to tens of thousands of dollars for small charging stations and hundreds of thousands of dollars for large charging stations.”

In fact, the significant innovation of the PKM system is in the power supply; the PKM series charging columns are simply a further development of the previous RTM series. They feature a similar design with the narrow footprint typical of Tritium and use the liquid-cooled modular design inside – 80 per cent of the components are the same here. Variants with 50 kW and 100 kW are to follow the PKM150.

Up to 350 amps can flow in the CCS2 version, while CCS1 is still 200 amps and CHAdeMO 125 amps. The cables are up to six meters long, and for operation, the column has a ten-inch display (no touchscreen) and four buttons.

“One of the biggest challenges in the EV charging industry right now is increasing utilization without increasing driver waiting times for a charge. Operating and capital costs are traditionally proportional to peak power requirements. Yet, the revenue our customers generate comes from average power delivery,” said Tritium Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer David Finn. “The PKM provides a new, distributed architecture that delivers unique site capital efficiency and scalability.”

The announcement also comes on the heels of Tritium anticipating public listing on Nasdaq in January 2022 through a business combination with Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation II.

businesswire.com, tritiumcharging.com (product page), tritiumcharging.com (PDF datasheet)