The key elements include six high speed charging hubs on motorways capable of charging eight vehicles simultaneously; 16 high speed charging hubs capable of charging four vehicles simultaneously; additional high power chargers at 34 current 50 kW locations; upgrading over 50 22 kW chargers to 50 kW, and replacing up to 264 locations with 528 charge points at the pre-existing pilot grade of 22 kW to next generation high reliability models.
I'd limit the AC socket in desirable locations to call centre activation only in the event the DC chargers were down and purely act as a failover.
4*50kW DC chargers and a separate AC location with 10*7kW AC would be a better use. The current situation is a poor use of resources and not enough spaces allocated
Not too far off what they've delivered, 2 75kW DC spaces, and 1 50kW DC space with a spot for PHEVs to go to the cinema 👿.
I don't see much advantage to rolling out 4 50kW DC chargers instead of rolling out 2 dual sided 150kW ones, and it still allows those of us who need to use Blanch to get a fast charge in the time to grab a Starbucks or a donut.
Totally agree with you on the need for spaces to match the number of charge points, and I also think eCars should not be in the business of providing AC charging to shopping centres unless it's paid for by the shopping centre itself and delivered somewhere else on site.
I got it now. The last bit it was confusing me. So load management on AC charging. It will happen. So far manufacturers were all muscle up to get market share. Now they will start looking at refinement. Here we have just one AC which is one too many.
BTW Blanch has a number of AC (4?) in front of the Red entrance. So leaving the car overnight at this "hub" should be costly. I would limit the AC socket here to 3 phase. In fact I would do that to all triple heads so making sure the Zoes are actually cater for. I don't mind the location it is quite accessible from M50 especially if you read the signs and use the other exit.
Tesla Destination chargers will already load balance between themselves, and Tesla give them to hotels for free (though the Gen 2 ones only cost €430 these days anyway).
I think backstepping on 22kW AC is a bad move, they are a great benefit to the 11/16/22kw EVs and we should be encouraging EV makers to make more use of them, thankfully the upcoming Ariya has 22kW capabilities.
In Winter a lot of cold EVs are better off on 22kW AC if they can fully support it
I'm going to make an educated guess that function which you describe will happen in time, but most likely in destination locations such as hotels. Many hotels won't be able to push beyond 22kW (~95A) due to local infrastructure issues and cost but will be under customer pressure to add charging spots, so I'm guessing that a load sharing option will come along where that 22kW will be shared across all of the chargers and perhaps even offering a first-come first-served option on a higher charging rate (selectable from the charging point). EasyGo are you listening? :)
Yes I agree with that. Unfortunately I doubt that Anna understands what you are saying let alone have the ability to do it!
What I'm saying is that I'm agreeing with ELM327 that the DC and AC chargers should not be at the same part of the Blanchardstown SC complex. I am saying that the DC chargers should be set up so that they aren't used by people who are going to spend several hours there, but should be set up with parking spaces that are big enough for cars to park in any orientation so that they can use the charger without impeding access to any of the other chargers.
I am also saying that the AC chargers should be in a different area, but that instead of being 7kW as ELM suggested, that they should be capable of delivering 22kW if someone plugged in a vehicle capable of taking it. As there is a small number of cars capable of taking 22kW, the site doesn't need to be able to provide 22kW to each port all the time. I was suggesting that if the maximum power provided by the site is 11kW x number of ports, then the vast majority of the time each vehicle that plugs in will be able to pull their maximum power. It reduces the maximum load that is allowed to be drawn from the grid, thereby reducing the cost of providing the transformer and other infrastructure relative to providing 22kW for each port, but without reducing the actual usability of the site.
I hope I'm more clear this time.
I don't really understand what are you suggesting.
Yes, DC and AC chargers should not be sharing the same parking area. They should be deployed to suit different dwell times. AC should have regular parking spaces, and should really only be used by people intending to spend in excess of an hour. DC should have larger spaces so cars van park in multiple orientations to cope with different charge port locations and should be used by people staying for shorter durations. The only difference I would say is that the AC chargers should be three phase. They can be set up to allow each individual port to supply 22kW, but the overall MIC for the AC charger bank to be at around 11kW per charger and load balance to ensure the total draw doesn't exceed the MIC.
What I noticed by looking at various times on the app Blanch has a great turnaround. The HPC helps. I noticed it took a bit longer to start but it was consistent afterwards, as these Delta units are know to be. Too bad that the AC there. They could have added an AC charger on the other side of the pedestrian crossing.
Lot's of demand for DC charging in the area, pity the AC socket on the 50kW screws things up a little.
The placing of an AC there is one of the silliest things "Anna" has done. Right up there with having a "hub" in a shopping center in the first place.
So I got to test the HPC in Blanch. Wasn't easy to prepare to be at low SoC as my fallback charger The Helix easygo trows me errors since last week. Anyway I used the pre-conditioning which Tesla opened to other chargers but I used Lucan on the navigation as Blanch is not o their map yet. When I got there the HPC was used by an Outlander and a Peugeot. The AC while occupied was not in use, and it looked that it was there from last night. So no spot even for the mere 50kW. Fortunately while trying to figure out what to do both the Outlander and Peugeot left so less than a minute of a stop I figure the battery still warm. Started with 8% SoC and the power went straight to 133kW
Then it increased up to 141kW where it stayed up to 36% SoC
And that took 10 minutes. Unlike my previous test with Ionity this time I said I will stay 20 mins but I logged when it reached 100kW which was at 52% SoC and after 16 minutes (32kWh added) averaging 120kW.
I stopped after 20 minutes. The SoC was at 60% and charging at 83kW. Total energy added 38kWh, average charging speed 114kW
13 locations is better than I expected to be honest. It's great that we finally have some doubled up locations and that there are actually new chargers happening unlike between 2016 and 2019 when it felt like that the network was going to die of neglect with combination of freeloading and lack of investment. In 2021 especially the network has finally seen plenty of upgrades.
They have that data. I have that data, and if I have that data, they damn sure do too. Units report states of offline, available, faulted, unavailable, charging, occupied (plugged in but not charging) and a few others like initialising charge. I judge reliability as when the unit is not "unavailable", "Faulted", or "offline", because in those states you very likely cannot initiate a charging session. Search Randles Garage in Killarney here - https://ecars-stats.com Offline more or less the whole week.
Had a look on ESBs ecars network updates page (https://www.esb.ie/ecars/our-network/network-upgrades) and they say Frankfield will be a hub. And ecars define all their hubs as having 2 units. I had a scout around the forecourt and the hotel but couldn't see anything obvious where works might be ongoing.
There are three tiers of high power charging hubs – tier one consisting of four high power chargers allowing up to eight electric vehicles at any one time; tier two consisting of two high power chargers allowing up to four electric vehicles at any one time; and tier three consisting of one high power charger and one fast charger allowing up to three electric vehicles charge at any one time.
So either they're not finished (though that 1 unit looks ready to go, and spaces all painted up), or they're putting a 2nd unit elsewhere on site, or it won't be a hub.
As it stands Cork has double the number of Dublin HPCs so triple would have been to much to bear 😊
I assume they count uptime as no faults reported, and they aren't actively running any checks on the chargers to ensure they're still online and healthy
Bit strange they got rid of the 50kW unit, they haven't done that with any of the other sites AFAIK
I guess they must have been constrained by available parking and weren't bothered running a new cable somewhere else
At least it can manage 2 cars in parallel now
All ready to rock once it gets power. Shameful if Frankfield is left as a single point of failure. Great it can charge 2 cars at once, but it's Cork Citys best placed charge site and will easily require more units now or very soon.
13, I did a lazy count in my DB where there's more than 1 CCS plug unit per site. Should be the same for CHAdeMO.
+------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+ | date | address | ccs_count | +------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+ | 2021-12-15 | Blanchardstown Centre, Navan Road, Clonsilla, Dublin 15 | 2 | | 2021-12-15 | Circle K - Centra, Rochestown Road, Rochestown, Cork City, Cork | 2 | | 2021-12-15 | Circle K M9 Kilcullen, M9, Co. Kildare | 2 | | 2021-12-15 | Circle K Service station, Centra O'Briens, Lynn Road, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath | 2 | | 2021-12-15 | Circle K Service Station, M8 @Junction 3 (R433), Ballacolla, Laois | 2 | | 2021-12-15 | Circle K Service Station, Promenade Road, Dublin Port, Dublin 1 | 2 | | 2021-12-15 | Kilmartin N6 Service Station, Dublin road, Athlone, Co.Westmeath, Ireland | 2 | | 2021-12-15 | Lunney’s Service Station, Sligo Road, Carrick-on-Shannon, Roscommon | 2 | | 2021-12-15 | Mayfield Services, M7 Junction 14 (R445), Monasterevin, Kildare | 4 | | 2021-12-15 | Park Ri Service Station, Cavan Road, Townparks, Kells, Meath. | 2 | | 2021-12-15 | Portlaoise Plaza, Exit 17, M7, Portlaoise, Co.Laois, Ireland | 2 | | 2021-12-15 | Texaco (Mace & Supermacs), N4, Ballinalack, Westmeath | 2 | | 2021-12-15 | The Galway Plaza, Junction 16, Carrowkeel, Kiltullagh, Co. Galway. | 2 | +------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+ 13 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Finally? There are 5-7 of them out of 110 FCP locations or something... in the whole country like...
@Black_Knight do you have exact data on how many locations are more than 1 FCP?
Some figure fudging going on there. 69% reliability in NI? Recently replaced chargers very high up time?
Bull.
Just realised. WE assumed they'd make this a hub. I'm pretty sure this is just a unit swap. No additional units going in.
Interesting to see an SLA of best response time of 2 hours. That's not an SLA that's of any use. It's a nothing if I understand it correctly. Are they saying they'll have an agreement that their best response time will be 2 hours? But not agreement around uptime or mttr or anything end users care about.
Comments and actual video of meeting
Video: Infrastructure Committee Quiz ESB Over “Abysmal” Service & New Network Plans
December 15, 2021
Earlier this morning representatives from ESB ecars presented to Stormont’s Infrastructure Committee.
You can watch the full presentation below (from around 19:10), plus the question and answer session that followed. Here are some of the things we learned from todays meeting.
Norn Iron..
The network is currently free to use in Northern Ireland but the possibility of introducing fees is being looked at
Introducing fees to use the electric car charging network in Northern Ireland is being considered for next year, the company that operates the public charging network has said.
Electricity Supply Board (ESB) executives were giving evidence to Stormont's Infrastructure Committee.
The network is currently free to use in Northern Ireland.
The executives reported that there are 1,180 charging stations in the Republic and 170 in Northern Ireland.
Appearing before the committee were ESB executives John Byrne and John Walsh.
They said there were currently 50,000 electric cars in use in the Republic, 4,600 in Northern Ireland.
They said the reliability of the charging network in the Republic is 98%, compared to 69% in Northern Ireland.
Infrastructure committee chairman Jonathan Buckley MLA of the DUP described the figures as "disgraceful" and "startling" and said it appeared Northern Ireland was "the poor child" in comparison with the Republic in relation to the reliability of the network.
UK must do better over electric cars - MPs
Electric cars: ESB to use £3.27m funding 'to double chargers'
Appearing before the committee were ESB executives John Byrne and John Walsh
The ESB executives said the Republic's network has benefited from an upgrade scheme over the last three years thanks to climate action funding from the Irish Government.
Levelling-up funding from the Westminster government will allow an upgrade of the Northern Ireland network over the next 18 months, replacing and upgrading charging points, which the ESB said will make the reliability here as good or better than the network in the Republic.
Levelling-up funding will provide £3.3m, which is 90% of the capital outlay required to upgrade the Northern Ireland network.
The ESB said the electric vehicle charging network operates at a loss in Northern Ireland.
In answer to a question from Alliance assembly member Andrew Muir, Mr Byrne said: "We are actively looking at our commercial models in NI in 2022, with a view to examining our options around commercialisation and introducing fees for charging."
From
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-59670987
First unit is in. Looks like the new dual CCS dual CHAdeMO style ones. It's replaced the old 50kW triple head. No sign of where a second unit might be going, but I only looked as I drove by.
I'll take a drive through it some day the week and see if I can see anything. I've mostly driven through in the evening so it's hard to see much in the dark.
I'd say it's going over to the left (as opposed to currently on the right) as you turn in. Plenty of spots down there
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