Preface:
We received an inquiry from the United States in April 2022, which aroused our great interest. The client had 15 acres of vacant land in the western state of California and wanted to develop it for commercial use. Because the land empty, adjacent to highway, and there are large supermarkets and shopping malls around, so there will be a larger parking demand, at the same time as the Tesla this kind of new energy full electric vehicle quantity increasing, superposition of the local government for the application of new energy encourage and subsidy policy, the client wants to develop it into an integrated “solar charging and energy storage” green parking lot with solar power generation, lithium battery storage, and charging pile in the parking space to charge the parked cars.
This is a new scenario of lithium battery application, and in line with the future demand for new energy vehicles, as well as the global trend of encouraging the popularity of new energy for environmental protection. The implementation of this project involves civil engineering, steel structure, solar power generation, lithium battery energy storage, charging pile, electric control and other industries, and the integration and collaboration of multiple technologies, so it is full of challenges. After completion, it will also have demonstration and driving effect. In factories, parks, shopping malls and other scenes, a large area of public open parking lots can be seen everywhere, with a huge area of reserves. At the same time, the global sales of new energy vehicles are growing, and the development is very rapid, which can absorb a high proportion of clean electricity. If these parking lots are used to build a large number of photovoltaic parking canopy, the green electricity generated can offset a considerable part of carbon emissions, and effectively alleviate the problem of lack of sites for building photovoltaic power stations in cities. Moreover, as a natural vehicle high turnover place, public parking lot is an excellent photovoltaic power consumption scene. CeramiX’s team has a wealth of lithium battery energy storage application and electric control of mature technology, the company’s partners Henan Dorian www.steelbuildingcn.com is the country’s largest private steel structure exporting manufacturer in Henan province, we have teamed up in Luoyang city of henan province local design and implement a similar project, at the same time we have a new energy charging pile, solar panel manufacture enterprise in the field of excellent partners, So after a few technical meetings we decided to take on the challenge. In the following, I will share CeramiX’s communication with clients, scheme design and specific implementation, which may bring some inspiration to those who are looking for new energy start-up projects.
Client’s requirements
After detailed communication with the client, we know that the client is actually a businessman who is not professional in solar power generation and lithium battery. He just has such a piece of land and has an idea to develop it into a green electric parking lot. Therefore, he did not want to coordinate the project with many factories, which was too difficult for him, and he did not have the resources of the entire supply-chain. Therefore, he asked CeramiX to be the general contractor of this project, as his only docking window, to help him coordinate and find various suppliers to complete the design scheme and supply. If all 15 acres are developed for parking, the cost is very high and the risk is very high. Therefore, after a preliminary understanding, the client set a budget of US $500,000 to complete a whole green parking lot that 5-10 new energy vehicles can be charged by solar generation and lithium battery energy storage as a demonstration project.
Suppliers and turn-key project solution establishment
CeramiX started the project as the general contractor. We first divided the whole project, in which the client was responsible for the civil works required by us, such as land leveling and ground hardening, and the division of parking Spaces. Henan Dorian is responsible for the design of the parking canopy and material supply, our CeramiX is responsible for the design and assembly of the lithium battery energy storage cabinet and the electric control cabinet, and our good partner — China’s new energy charging pile factory star-charge is responsible for supplying American standard 11KW-AC charging piles, it is worth mentioning that the Star-charge is one of Top 10 new energy charging pile manufacturers in China, Moreover, they attach great importance to the American market, with rich application experience and complete export certification. That leaves only suppliers of solar power systems to choose from. However, there is a lack of photoelectric building materials for parking canopy design in the market at present.
When non-targeted photovoltaic panels are used to construct parking canopy, the following problems are prone to occur:
1.The overall strength of conventional photovoltaic panel frame is relatively low due to its small section and thin wall thickness;
2.Conventional photovoltaic panels generally use 2+2mm laminated glass or 3.2mm single-layer glass, the area is more than 2㎡, so thin and so large glass, under the action of wind pressure and snow load is easy to bend deformation;
3.Conventional photovoltaic panels do not have independent waterproof function after laying, but when applied to the shed must consider the waterproof requirements, it is necessary to lay additional aluminum alloy flume to assist drainage, affecting the appearance, but also increase the material cost and installation cost.
To solve above problems, we carried on the detailed market research and screening, as well as a series of technical communication and negotiation, finalising the supplier of solar pv system, with the big brand of inverters, finally got a set of power generation, energy storage, charging and intelligent energy management functions as one of the intelligent network system, to achieve efficient and safe “solar-charging-energy storage” green parking lot. Among them, the function of lithium battery energy storage is to store the unused electricity generated during the day, and then charge the vehicles at night, or provide electricity to other loads through grid connection. This is the zero-carbon mobility integration solution we are talking about today. The integrated optical storage and charging solution can achieve a basic balance between local energy production and energy consumption load through energy storage and optimal allocation.
The whole design scheme covers an area of 1,368 square meters, with 44 parking Spaces (including 11KW charging piles), daily electricity generation of 450kwh and 40KWH storage cabinets. The total cost budget is $316,988 (excluding shipping cost from Chinese ports to the United States, local installation labor costs, etc.). The delivery time is 60 days, and the installation guide drawings of steel structure, energy storage cabinet and charging pile are provided to the client. It is estimated that the project can reduce carbon emission by 191 tons and save electricity cost by $25,000 per year. Combined with the local policy subsidies, the investment cost can be recovered within 2-3 years. The future demonstration site will be accepted, and greater economic benefits will be generated through the scale effect.
Finally, this project was recognized by the client and the prepayment was quickly paid. Now all the goods have been shipped. We will bring you more information after the trial operation of the parking lot in 2-3 months.
