Swedish firms Northvolt and Mälarenergi have partnered to deploy a 220kW/320kWh lithium-ion energy storage system to power an electric vehicle (EV) charging station in their home country.
Gigafactory developer Northvolt will deliver the lithium-ion battery system based around its Voltrack modular battery system in Västerås, Sweden.
The cells are being delivered by a third-party battery maker, and will be integrated into battery modules and systems designed and built in-house by Northvolt.
A company spokesman told BEST the system would be charged with power supplied from the local power grid when the EV charging station was not in use.
Northvolt’s own cell-manufacturing capacity is due to come online this month, beginning with Northvolt Labs. The company’s ultimate goal will be to deliver all battery systems based around its own cells.
The system is intended to reduce peaks in electricity demand of the charging station by more than 80%. It is due to be commissioned next summer at the Rocklunda charging station and will be Mälarenergi’s first to be co-located alongside EV charging infrastructure.
Jesper Wigardt, head of Corporate Communications & Public Affairs at Northvolt, told BEST: “The battery system will be charged during times when no vehicles are connected to the EV charging station. When the EV chargers are in operation, power will come from the electricity grid up to a certain pre-defined level, after which all power above that level will be taken from the battery.
“Relative to the charging and discharging of the battery, this means that when the station is in use, the battery is discharging (when consumption surpasses the grid predefined level), and the battery will be charged slowly from the grid when no one is charging their vehicle.”
Emad Zand, President Energy Solutions, Northvolt, said the partnership with Mälarenergi represented its our first commercial deployment.
In June, Northvolt announced it had raised $1 billion for its Swedish gigafactory project— and has revealed it will build a second facility in Germany in partnership with Volkswagen.
The Germany project is scheduled to start manufacturing battery cells for VW’s electric vehicles from late 2023 or early 2024 and production could be increased to 24GWh over the following years, the partners said.
