Work has now begun on an electric vehicle (EV) charging hub that forms part of the Energy Superhub Oxford project being developed by Pivot Power and Oxford City Council.
Celebrated as the UK’s largest public EV charging hub, the site is to see the installation of 10 Fastned chargers with up to 300kW of power, 16 Gamma Energy chargers with between 7-22kW of power and 12 250kW Tesla Superchargers. As demand grows, Fastned is to add at least four more chargers.
The hub is expected to open to the public in 2022, and be powered by 100% renewable energy, with this partly generated by Fastned’s solar roof. Chargers are to be open 24/7, while both contactless and app-based payment options will be available.
The EV charging hub is one of up to 40 similar sites planned by Pivot Power across the UK.
The start of work on the site is the latest milestone in the £41 million Energy Superhub Oxford project, which is set to support the city’s goal of being zero carbon by 2040 or earlier by integrating rapid EV charging, hybrid battery storage, low carbon heating and smart energy management technologies.
The EV charging hub is to be directly connected to National Grid’s high voltage transmission network, a feature the companies behind the Energy Superhub Oxford are claiming makes the site unlike any other UK charging hub.
This direct connection to the transmission network is to provide the power needed to charge large numbers of EVs quickly without putting strain on the local electricity network
The hub is to share this connection with a 50MW hybrid battery, combining lithium-ion and vanadium flow technology, the latter of which is supplied by Invinity Energy Systems. Meanwhile, Wärtsilä provided the lithium-ion battery energy storage technology, which went live earlier this year.
“Energy Superhub Oxford is creating the power infrastructure needed to supercharge electric vehicle uptake across Oxford and meet the demand for fast, easy and reliable charging for decades to come,” said Tim Rose, programme manager for Energy Superhub Oxford at Pivot Power.
