Project ReNew: Commercializing Megawatt Fast-Charging Points

Charging Infrastructure Project ReNew: Commercializing Megawatt Fast-Charging Points

2025-12-08 From Stefanie Eckardt | Translated by AI 3 min Reading Time

The electrification of the transport sector will require large capacities of fast-charging infrastructure. The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Infineon Technologies, Siemens, STS Spezial-Transformatoren-Stockach and Gruner are working on developing system concepts for megawatt charging stations in the "ReNew—Resilient fast-charging parks for heavy goods traffic" project.

The ReNew project is developing system concepts for megawatt charging stations.(Image: Fraunhofer ISE | AI) — The ReNew project is developing system concepts for megawatt charging stations.
(Image: Fraunhofer ISE | AI)

The new system concepts for megawatt charging stations are to pursue a holistic as well as technically and economically scalable approach. The consortium is developing and building the central medium-voltage components and testing them on a laboratory scale. The focus of the research work is on local energy distribution with direct current at medium-voltage level.

No Meaningful System Concepts Available Yet

The megawatt charging standard (MCS) already enables charging capacities of one to three megawatts per charging point and therefore currents of up to 3000 A. Initial components are available for the installation of these charging points up to one megawatt, but there are no sensibly scalable system concepts. This is where the ReNew project comes in. In order to optimize cost-effectiveness and resource efficiency, it considers all components and the entire system technology and develops the necessary components to implement energy distribution with direct current at medium-voltage level. In addition to optimizing costs and increasing efficiency, the central project goals are also resource efficiency, both during installation and during operation of the charging stations.

Fast-Charging Parks With Photovoltaics

The fast-charging parks are viewed as hybrid power plants in the project, which means that battery storage systems as well as photovoltaic systems are integrated into the system design. Due to the large areas of car parks, PV systems as parking lot roofing can reach the order of 1 MW. Because solar power generation correlates well with the charging demand on traffic routes, peak loads in the power grid can be buffered and the self-consumption of the fast-charging park can be increased. The fast-charging park is still operational even if the grid fails and could supply critical consumers via the public grid as a decentralized distributed electricity storage system.

The focus is on the transmission of energy in the charging park via a multi-port direct current distribution grid with a voltage of three to five kV. This is connected to the medium-voltage or transmission grid via central, grid-compatible rectifiers. In the charging park, insulating DC converters are connected to the charging points. The aim of the project is to develop the two central power electronics.

Minimize the Use of Components

Because the high currents that occur on the vehicle side during megawatt charging pose a major technical challenge, the project team is developing inductive components and DC protection elements in addition to the power electronics demonstrators. The insulating DC converters are also to be used to connect PV systems. For the grid rectifiers to be developed, the focus is on the efficiency of the grid-supporting control technology and the modular design and bidirectionality in order to ensure stability in the power grid of the future.

The chosen approach of a high DC distribution voltage reduces the use of resources for cables and other system components. At the same time, losses during operation can be reduced due to the lower currents. The central system components, such as grid rectifiers, DC converters, semiconductors, winding goods and DC switching devices, which the project consortium is developing in the corresponding voltage class, will then be tested on a laboratory scale at Fraunhofer ISE. (se)

"Charging deserts" in Europe (Image:Motointegrator/ Datapulse Research)

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