ABB has developed its e-mobility products over time, as it now turns towards enhancing its EV charging products for the Australian market.
ABB’s history as an electrical services provider in Australia spans for more than a century. Yet in 2022, its involvement in electric vehicle charging infrastructure is keeping it at the cutting edge.
The company that famously invented the miniature circuit breaker through Hugo Stotz in 1924 has become a global leader in producing high performance charging infrastructure to cater for the growing e-mobility market.
Business development and product lead for electric vehicle charging infrastructure for ABB in Australia Steve Amor says that in 2010 the company looked to the growing developments in battery technology and e-mobility and set about acquiring the Dutch based DC battery charging company Epyon.
“It all started in the more mature EV markets of Europe, where ABB first released the first 50-kilowatt charger in 2010,” Amor told ABC. “That particular product has been around for a long time now – there’s since been over 33,000 installations of DC fast charging infrastructure with representation in 88 regions around the globe.
“At around the same time, the Australian arm of the company was looking at focus markets and where we needed to be positioned by 2015. My focus project at the time was e-mobility and it was here that I was provided with my initial introduction to the segment.”
Amor was retained as segment lead for ABB’s electric vehicle charging portfolio in 2017 and was key to helping secure a project with Chargefox to supply Australia’s and Asia Pacific’s first 350-kilowatt EV chargers in the Victorian town of Euroa. Amor says this project was the catalyst that opened the flood gates for the portfolio locally, as ABB’s EV charging portfolio went from strength to strength.
ABB’s e-mobility global headquarters is located in Delph in the Netherlands and is home to a dedicated state of the art laboratory. The company has technical partnerships with vehicle manufacturers and product suppliers across the globe, ensuring the products it supplies are designed and tested to compliment the latest trends in battery development and ensuring compatibility across multiple brands and types of vehicles. The company’s ability ranges from a 7.5-kilowatt single phase destination charger to a 600-kilowatt DC bus fast charger providing a wide range of solutions to assist operators with their zero emissions transition.
“It’s incredible how quickly battery technology has moved,” Amor says. “When I returned to the role at ABB Australia in 2017, everyone was looking for charging of battery sizes of an average of around 50 kilowatts – just a few years before that we were looking at catering for charging of vehicle batteries under 10 kilowatts!
“Since then, batteries and chargers have gotten bigger and the requirement for faster and more efficient use of the charging infrastructure is now the main focus.”
Amor plays an integral hand in helping ABB transition operators to an emissions free depot. The EV lead says ABB’s long term global experience in the EV charging market ensures it has the experience to assist operators in aligning vehicles with the charging infrastructure required to make the transition.
Amor says it is typical that the first step in the process for most operators is to initially focus on the electric vehicles before considering the chargers and then power required to operate them.
“You really have to focus on the available power coming in and the existing loads on electrical systems to ensure that we nail down a solution that suits the operator both now and into the future,” Amor says. “We encourage discussion on planning the power distribution to ensure solutions are scalable to cater not only for current needs but to ensure there is future capability to add additional infrastructure as the EV fleet grows and budgets allow.”
ABB also offers portable and modular DC charging solutions to assist operators with tricky and space constrained depots. The company is a charging hardware and software supplier for EV chargers, meaning it doesn’t have direct influence on the engineering or installation parts of the process. Amor says ABB Australia lends off its long-formed partnerships with engineering, integrator and installation partners, as well as with power suppliers, retailers and financers, working as a conduit and experienced partner to assist operators with the transition.
Already ABB in Australia has had a number of successes with electric bus applications. Of recent note, the company was engaged by the WA Public Transport Authority and Volvo Bus to supply charging infrastructure to Western Australia’s first electric public transport bus route in Joondalup near Perth, using its latest 180-kilowatt fast chargers intelligently load powered by a mix of grid, renewables and battery energy storage.
Looking forward, ABB has been awarded the contract to supply fast charging infrastructure to support a fleet of 1000 electric buses expected to be in operation during the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Supplying more than 125MW of charging capacity through both renewable energy and grid power, the Heavy Vehicle Charging equipment will be installed across multiple locations in Qatar, including four bus depots, eight bus stations and 12 metro stations. ABB will also provide the data connection and interfaces to connect and integrate the charging infrastructure operation into the Mowasalat Fleet Management System for 24/7 fleet optimization.
“Winning projects of this magnitude comes down our expertise and world-leading EV infrastructure combined with strong global partnerships both in the local region and with bus OEMs and operators,” Amor says.
With a keen eye on aftersales service and support and rapidly moving towards scalability and maximum utilisation of chargers, Amor says ABB will continue to introduce class leading technology. Early next year it will introduce a Heavy Vehicle Charger with a total output of 360 kilowatts that can simultaneously charge four buses at 90 kilowatts each. Along with providing the charging infrastructure for recent public charger installations at Ampol and Chargefox, Australia can expect to be seeing ABB more and more often when it comes to EV charging.
“It’s an exciting time – we’re aiming to be supporting every form of electronic transport in Australia providing a quality charging experience,” Amor says. “We are really appreciative of the support we have received from the local bus industry and are keen to see these partnerships continue to grow well into the future.”