• TPS to unveil ground-breaking range of Velox chargers at London EV Show
• Up to 480kW speed without costly and complex infrastructure and installation work
• British designed and built charger from innovative aerospace and transport smart energy
  engineering firm

The final pre-production version of a ground-breaking new smart rapid charger with 480kW ultra rapid speed that can be installed without the need for major infrastructure work will be unveiled at the London EV Show this week.

The British designed, developed and built Velox chargers deliver multi-bay ultra-rapid charging speeds through a smart network energy system that manages grid, solar, battery and EV, on an efficient DC microgrid and without the need for costly and complex infrastructure and installation work that has proved so problematic for many businesses.

This ground-breaking, innovative new modular system has been developed by Turbo Power Systems (TPS), a Gateshead-based engineering company that designs and builds bespoke power solutions for aerospace, transport and other technology-led industries such as the energy sector. It has applied that knowledge to solve the problem of rapid vehicle charging for business and fleets.

“We know that lots of businesses and organisations are struggling with how to implement high speed charging without major groundworks, upgrades to sub stations and long-winded planning applications, and our system does away with the need for any of that,” said TPS CEO Carlos Neves.

“Many rapid charger solutions are reliant on extensive upgrades to cabling and the grid to provide the power. At TPS, we design and build solutions for planes and trains that have to use the available energy in extremely clever ways – you can’t just rely on huge amounts of unlimited power. You have to work with what you have and engineer solutions from there, and so we have taken this same approach with this charging system.”

“Using smart energy management, we can take in the most efficient manner possible power from the grid or onsite generation, hold it, store it, and move it, so that vehicles can be charged at high speed whenever they need.”

All of this means that, for a typical installation the operator can expect an average improvement in terms of return on investment of 20%, relative to a ‘direct to grid’ conventional charging solution. If operating in London, then it could be a staggering 55% improvement due to the associated high land and installation costs of conventional chargers.

The Velox charger unveiled at the show comes in two configurations: i and c. The i version – which stands for integrated – achieves speeds of up to 120kW, while the c model – or compact – is a scalable system up to 480kW, both connected to an innovative distribution grid inverter that manages a smart DC network to direct power to where it is best utilised.

“The system will fully launch early next year but having been through all testing and extensive trials over the past three years, we felt it was important for businesses and fleets to see Velox now and begin to understand the incredible possibilities this ground-breaking
system offers them.”

The system has been designed for use by any fleet that requires high speed charging. In particular, those companies and organisations which have depots, compounds or vehicle parks but have found that the cost and time involved in installing rapid charging has until
now been prohibitive.

“The applications are endless. A bus depot, for example, where digging the whole place up is just not viable would be one application where our system would be ideal. Or a delivery fleet depot where it needs to reduce downtime, and charge many vehicles all at once,
quickly, would find it transformational,” Neves added.

“For HGVs, our extremely high speed and easy installation at rest stops would mean they would be able take advantage of charging during driver’s rest periods. That’s game changing. Or rental firms with compounds who need to turn around electric vehicles for the
next booking.”

It’s not just large fleets that can benefit though. Because of the modular nature of the system, it could be installed for customers wanting ultra-rapid charging either for private use, or to offer public charging to consumers for a fee. All would benefit from the light
touch installation, and high-speed charging, we can offer.”