Norway: Fastcharge chooses Kempower as a partner for truck charging hubs

Norwegian charging station operator Fastcharge is working with Kempower for its truck charging parks. These are said to be the first hubs in Norway dedicated exclusively to trucks.

Fastcharge is a Norwegian CPO for stations for heavy goods vehicles. The company plans to operate several public charging stations for trucks in Norway by the end of the year. The first public hub went online in the Alnabru district of Oslo at the end of July. Locations in Ringsaker, Sandefjord, Gjesdal, Bergen and Malvik will follow in the coming months.

The charging park in Oslo has stations with a capacity of up to 400 kW per CCS charging point. Megawatt charging using the MCS standard will also be possible in the future. The charging infrastructure partner is hardware manufacturer Kempower, which cooperates with Wennstrom, a provider of intelligent electric mobility solutions, which acts as a sales and service partner in the project. The duo will also provide the charging infrastructure for the other planned Fastcharge hubs.

Kempower relies on a decentralised principle for its DC charging stations. The power units with the control technology can be placed a few metres away from the charging station. The charging station, also known as a satellite charger, can thus be compact and narrow, which minimises the space required at the parking space itself. Typically, two 600 kW units can supply several HPC satellites for electric cars. In the attached press photo for the Oslo site, five power units can be seen feeding nine satellites. Truck drivers can reserve the site’s Kempower chargers using the Fastcharge app.

The chargers can later be upgraded to MCS. Kempower presented a corresponding system in April. Specifically, two power units are bundled (2×600 kW) and used for a satellite. This then has a liquid-cooled MCS charging plug and can thus deliver a total output of 1.2 megawatts to the charging vehicle.

Erik Kanerva, Kempower Sales Director for Northern Europe, described the project as “pioneering.” “Offering public, on-the-move charging for trucks that is reliable, scalable, and user-friendly is critical for the adoption of electrical trucks. We look forward to building many more truck charging stations together.”

“We aim to be the natural choice for transportation companies by offering a premium service, and at the same time facilitating the transition to electrification of the transportation fleet with reduced total cost of ownership,” added Harald Grytten, CEO at Fastcharge.

kempower.com