Europe’s largest charging park for electric vehicles opens in Germany on Friday. The first construction phase of the Seed & Greet charging park is complete, with 44 of an expected 114 charging stations from various operators available. These include 12 superchargers of the latest V3 generation from Tesla and Fastned - Europe’s fastest charging stations, the companies say. All charging stations are supplied with 100% green power from sources including a large photovoltaic installation on the charging park’s carports and high-performance storage devices from the German manufacturer Tesvolt.
The two battery storage system containers from Tesvolt store electricity from the currently 336 kilowatt-peak (kWp) photovoltaic installation and two small wind turbines in order to shave the expensive peak loads that occur during the charging of electric vehicles, the company says. They also store green electricity from the grid when it is particularly cheap and relieve the utility grid when there is more electricity in the grid than is consumed.
Gregor Hinz, energy consultant and technical planner for the project, anticipates that the two storage systems will have paid for themselves in just a few years. “In combination with our hourly purchase of energy on the German spot market, this is the perfect symbiosis for optimal management of self-generated energy,” says Hinz.
The operator of the charging park will also be providing a further four public charging stations with charging power of up to 22 kW and twelve stations for staff and tenants. While waiting for their cars to charge, motorists will also be able to use the on-site café-bistro with organic bakery.
The second construction phase is planned for the end of this year, when all the charging stations will be complete and the solar installation will be expanded to a total power of 700 kWp. The five-story building complex is scheduled for completion by the end of 2022, offering office space for various tenants alongside the Seed & Greet café-bistro. The vertical greenhouse, covering four stories and 1,000 square meters, will then be located between the two buildings, housing salad, strawberries and blueberries grown for use at the bakery.
With its sophisticated energy concept with heat recovery, rainwater and process water harvesting, the organic bakery and the wooden frame construction of the park, and planned vertical farming all go toward making Seed & Greet a “flagship project,” says Simon Schandert, co-founder and CTO of Tesvolt.
