Around 235,000 cars pass through the Kreuz Hilden junction connecting the A3 and A46 motorways in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, every day. This is where the largest charging park project in Europe will come to fruition, set to cover 12,000 square metres.

Motorists will be able to charge their electric vehicles at 62 fast charging stations from Tesla and Fastned boasting charging power of up to 350 kilowatts (kW). In addition, there are another eight public charging stations with a charging capacity of up to 22 kW and 44 charging stations for employees and tenants that will be operated by organic baker Roland Schüren — the owner of the charging park.

While waiting for their cars to charge, motorists can enjoy a coffee or a bite to eat at the bakery and café, where bread and pastries are baked fresh on-site. Or they can visit the vertical farming greenhouse, which covers 1,000 square metres over four storeys and supplies lettuce, strawberries and blueberries for use in the bakery. The bakery’s waste heat is reused for the vertical farming project as well as for heating and hot water.

The first phase of construction, including approximately half of the charging stations, is set to be completed in August. The battery storage systems manufactured by Tesvolt in Wittenberg, Germany, will temporarily store electrical energy from the photovoltaic installation — rated above 700 kilowatts peak — and two small wind power installations to reduce costs associated with peak loads. They will also store green energy from the public grid when it is particularly inexpensive and relieve the grid when there is more energy available than is being drawn.

Gregor Hinz, energy consultant and general technical planner for the project, expects that the two storage systems will have paid for themselves within just a few years. The federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia will also cover a portion of the investment costs as part of its progress.

“Of course, it is particularly important that a charging park’s storage systems can be quickly charged and discharged at any time. Currently, only a very few storage products on the market are capable of this,” says Hinz. He had included three commercial storage system manufacturers on the shortlist for the charging park project. He says that Tesvolt set itself apart in the end because the TPS flex storage container offers impressive performance while being relatively compact and is one of the few systems on the market capable of fulfilling the high technical demands.

The smart battery management system developed by Tesvolt engineers ensures that the cells are charged and discharged as efficiently as possible and gives the storage system a high life expectancy of approximately 30 years. Tesvolt has already won a number of awards for its innovative concepts and products.

“E-mobility makes all the more sense when electric cars are charged with renewable energy. The Kreuz Hilden charging park is a fine example of this — we admire the project’s holistic approach and we are extremely proud to have been selected to provide the storage systems,” says Daniel Hannemann, CEO and co-founder of Tesvolt.