Siemens Smart Infrastructure has been awarded a five-year contract by Aral pulse to deploy Electrification X from the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio for its Aral e-mobility brand. Using Electrification X allows Aral pulse to centrally operate, optimize and secure Aral charging stations with ultra-fast electric vehicle charging technology.
Digital substations connecting Aral’s service stations for ultra-fast charging. Image Credit: Siemens
Siemens has delivered and commissioned in the past four years 300 intelligent substations and connected them to Electrification X. The digital substations powering the charging infrastructure for electric cars and trucks have an output of up to 400 kilowatts (kW). Depending on the vehicle, electric cars can charge up to 300 kilometers reach in 10 minutes.
“To make charging as quick as refueling vehicles with conventional fuels, we’re investing in ultra-fast chargers with outputs of up to 400 kW. But the chargers alone are not enough. Upgrades also require an efficient and reliable connection to the power grid. That’s why we’re happy to have Siemens on board as an expert in electrical infrastructure,” said Alexander Junge, member of the Aral AG Management Board in charge of the Electromobility division.
A dashboard provides insight into all safety-related messages from the individual stations in real-time. Digital condition monitoring visualizes the entire energy distribution and all operating data at the medium- and low-voltage level and highlights issues across the locations. A central service cloud for patches and updates, user management with multi-factor authentication, and a SIEM for attack detection make the systems NIS-2-compliant.
The cloud-solution Electrification X Dynamic Load Management provides transparency into the status and utilization of the electric vehicle charging network for efficient and optimized charging. Dynamic load management and remote control of the digital charging stations make it possible to avoid potential capacity limitations by the distribution system operator which could result in costly violations.
“This project is a strong example of how we can connect the real and the digital worlds. The substations are the physical heart of the energy supply for Aral’s charging infrastructure, but without the connection to the digital world, each system would remain siloed. This central connection enables us to provide an efficient and secure charging infrastructure and, alongside Aral pulse, pave the way for sustainable and electrified mobility,” said Stephan May, CEO of Electrification and Automation at Siemens Smart Infrastructure.
Furthermore, the installation of 350 additional digital substations at Aral’s service stations in Germany is already underway.
Built on cloud services, Electrification X is designed to manage, optimize, and automate the challenging electrification infrastructure of commercial, industrial and utility customers. As a part of Siemens Xcelerator, an open digital business platform to accelerate digital transformation and value creation, the Electrification X IoT suite is developed according to the core design principles of interoperability, flexibility, openness, availability as a service, and the highest level of cybersecurity.