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.
oh, there are chargers in kinnegad?
yes, ESB just installed 4 new units.
Are there services at the Kinnegad stop ? for charging Eastbound
Yes, gigantic supermacs among other amenities
Not live yet.
The longish walk from charger to shop and back kills one or 2 of the many minutes waiting time so I never mind that.
You'd think the toll company would help get more chargers in Enfield services to stop them losing out even more to Kinnegad route. Plenty of revenue from their ripoff toll rates to bankroll it
@AndyBoBandy @zg3409
Sorry to keep asking, is there currently ESB chargers working at Kinnegad?
No. The ESB ones are awaiting activation... keep an eye on their Facebook page of their app to see when they get turned on.
My VW app shows 13 ESB open chargers at Monasterevin - are there really that many 70KW there?
No, I've noticed the We Charge app can have charging sites down twice, I assume it's some duplication from the data sources they're using
Planning application for a new 8 car Ecars hub
Location is the crescent shopping centre near Limerick
No documents uploaded yet but hopefully the same setup as Obama plaza or Kinnegar
Interesting that this is the second hub being installed at a shopping centre (first being Blanchardstown)
I suspect this is Ecars new model given they're being pushed out of motorway services
There's the a similar structured hub being installed in Carrickmines. In the planning application there was no clarity on who the operator will be or the power of the available chargers. Looks like we could have those 6 hubs 8 car hubs from the original post delivered by year end.
I wonder is the electrical infrastructure going to be owned and operated by a third party but then just leased to a branded charging provider to have them install their chargers on the platforms...? Not impossible to imagine seeing this in-bulk in the future.
It wouldn't surprise me, I can see property investment companies installing substations and ducting and then leasing out the spaces to charge point operators. Whether it's eCars, EasyGo, or Ionity that operate the charging station the electrons are all the same.
It's great to see decent hubs getting delivered, although they've yet to be built, so I'll refrain from full enthusiasm until they're online
I'm in two minds about installing hubs in shopping centres. Given the choice I'd take them over some decrepit motorway service station, but Blanch and Carrickmines in particular can be pretty bad for traffic jams
You'd be a bit annoyed if your 20 mins charging stop comes with a 15 mins traffic jam on top
I feel like they'll be better suited for locals who live in the area, which is fine, they need to have access to chargers as well
I can just see some future Plugshare comments from tourists complaining about the amount of traffic in the area
The way some of the providers seem to have operated is they'll provide their own transformer and ESBN just provide the MV network connection
They still need to provide a cabinet for ESBN equipment though, a lot of the planning applications seem to have a substation with two cabinets, one for ESBN and one for the customer
I suppose in the case of Carrickmines there might already be sufficient grid power available, it's relatively new so they might have anticipated some additional power needs
It's the district hub concept, but still with some access to local transport infrastructure. Once the service stations locked out eCars from co-location it was the next logical place other than eCars building their own forecourt locations.
There is a significant 220kV distribution substation only 1km away from Carrickmines SC, so power to the site might not be the most problematic there.
My years of criticism about the charger layout & config. Looks like the ESB finally understood some key points and and all new 150 kW+ units are installed in the same and correct fashion:
I don't want to overpraise them but it looks like they're making some good progress.
The next improvement from here would be to make the chargers accessible from all 4 sides i.e. a true petrol station layout.
Yeah but then look at the laying in Northside SC…. Looks like a 150kW & 50kW unit and most likely going to share 3 spaces…. And no doubt AC on the 50kW unit…. The chargers are far too close to each other to suggest otherwise!!
So it seems 2 steps forward and always 1 step back!!
That's the layout they use when they turn 4 existing spaces into 3 charging spots.
I think you have went a little too far there... I know you've acknowledged it but only being able to use 2 of the 4 plugs is a pretty big issue. It feels like it's designed by someone who doesn't drive an EV.
The chargers are good. They're really reliable. But if the moved them to the the mid point of the bay then the cable would stretch to the front or the back.
In the end they need to look to best practices elsewhere. Ionity install one charger per space. Instavolt in the UK are one of the largest CPOs and they always install one charger per space. Or go the whole hog and install a full load share solution such as the Kempower one where the chargers in a remote cabinet, and the pedestal is just a dispenser
The charger doesn't really have 4 plugs, I don't really count Chademo, it's being obsoleted.
As long as 2 CCS cars can charge at the same time from one charger and the parking layout allows it then I think it's a good progress (vs the previous shambles of a layout), right?
I'm not sure the charger can be configured as 4x CSS and load balance that. If it can then you're right indeed.
That's correct, the charger is only capable of doing 2 cars at once, it's 1 charger charging 2 cars in 2 spaces. No different from a petrol pump that has diesel and petrol on each side. I don't see how it's functionally different than the instavolt/ionity setups of having 1 charger serve 1 car in 1 space.
Yeah in this case, despite my heavy criticism of the EBS for years, they did this actually very right and it should be commended.
Long way to go for making progress on other fronts though, of course (power, locations, number of charger per site, pricing, dynamics of the rollout).
Saying that, just for a balance...
Just back from Luxembourg, which is relatively immature EV market similar to Ireland and seen/used there hubs of 300 kWh chargers, payment by card, €0.50 per kWh, cofinananced by the EU. ESB should do the same.
I don't see how the current "hubs" with 150 kW chargers (divided by 2 as it's shared) are futureproofed and hence how it's well spent taxpayer's money. They keep doing the same thing - installing almost obsolete chargers at a time when they should be installing the current iteration. Like they were installing 50 kW chargers when 150 kW was the current iteration, now they are installing 150 kW (well 75 kW really once they get busy) when 300 kW is the current iteration.
EDIT: If I was the project manager - I would install load balanced 300 kW chargers with 2 CSS connectors. That would be reasonably future proof for several years to come.
EDIT2: Took me 5 minutes to find the charger that is futureproofed - ABB Terra 360CC (360 kW, loadbalanced, 2x CSS) - Terra 360 | ABB. Costs around €90k. So perhaps the EBS are saving money, which again is waste of taxpayers money, or they didn't do a proper research, both of which will result in waste of taxpayers money as the chargers won't be adequete within a year or two and new will have to be added.
To be fair, they're actually 200kW units which is a tad better than 150kW (33.33333% better 😉)
But I agree otherwise, it isn't exactly the network of tomorrow
It's not the charger costs that are the issue it's the deployment of the system as a whole. I would much rather have a 2 200kW charger site with 4 charging spaces than 1 360kW charger with 2 charging spaces. They both require comparable grid connections.
Analysis from Osprey in the UK found that for their current network the average charging time including waiting for availability was better served by deploying more 150kW chargers instead of fewer 350kW which would only reduce charging time for an individual user by about 5 minutes.
Problem I have with most of the ESB sites is 4 available plugs on 2 separate chargers but 3 parking spaces marked.
