The City of Dundee in Scotland is setting a high standard in electric vehicle charging station deployment with its integration of solar power and water purification, TS2 reports.
Dundee’s EV charging network
Dundee is a coastal city with a population of 148,000. Impressively, it has already developed 370 electric vehicle charging stations so far, with the city owning 185 of the total.
For comparison, Savannah, Georgia, also has the same population figure, but it currently only operates 275 charging stations.
The city of Dundee recently launched a new charging hub on Clepington Road, which incorporates sustainability with ingenuity with its numerous remarkable features.
What’s special about the new charging hub?
The new charging hub boasts a total of 12 charging points, which offers both rapid and ultra-rapid chargers. It includes five 50kW chargers and a single 150 kW charger, Motor Mouth noted.
The city strategically placed the new charging hub near convenience stores, restaurants, beauty salons, and Fairmuir Park to offer electric vehicle owners activity options while they wait during charging sessions.
More impressively, the new charging hub demonstrates Dundee’s commitment to sustainability with its integration of solar canopies for energy generation. The solar canopies connect to two onsite battery storage units, which adopt reused electric vehicle batteries.
As per Electrek, each battery unit has an annual storage capacity of 100 MWh. It is apparently sufficient to provide power to 5,000 charging sessions. Notably, this estimate is based on an average consumption of 20 kWh per charging session, or 13.5 sessions/day.
The reused EV batteries store extra solar power and tap into the electrical grid during off-peak times, enabling the city to cut costs and emissions.
Apart from these upsides, the EV charging hub also boasts remarkable accessibility. It offers longer cables to accommodate wheelchair-access vehicles. Wheelchair users and strollers also have level access to the charging point from the parking area.
What’s next?
The charging hub on Clepington Road further impressed the electric vehicle space with its solar canopy roofs’ capability to accumulate rainwater for drinking.
The roof obtains the rainwater and funnels it downward to a purifying machine, which is also powered by the solar canopy on the site.
It basically allows drivers to replenish their water bottles with free, clean drinking water from the charging hub’s water purification system.
Now, Dundee is reportedly planning to equip all its current and future charging hubs with water-purifying machines.
Once the city successfully develops its planned charging hubs every 500 meters of the road, the public will benefit from free, clean drinking water every half km.
All that said, Dundee’s remarkable EV charging hub development strategy poses a compelling demonstration of how urban locations can join the shift to EVs without compromising overall sustainability and inclusion.
