Local Australia-based Tritium Holdings Pty Ltd, a global developer and manufacturer of DC fast-charging technology for EVs, unveiled PKM, the company’s new architecture and line of fast chargers. The PKM line is designed to break the linear relationship between the power conversion equipment, which manages the electrical grid feed to the site, and charger power output, which manages electricity delivery to an EV.
This development gives charge-point operators the freedom to share one central source of converted DC power around the site. Since the infrastructure is shared, less equipment is needed, enabling operators to deploy more charging stations and increase the number of fast chargers available for EV drivers.
One of the biggest challenges in the EV charging industry right now is increasing utilization without increasing driver waiting times for a charge. Operating and capital costs are traditionally proportional to peak power requirements, yet the revenue our customers generate comes from average power delivery.
The PKM provides a new, distributed architecture that delivers unique site capital efficiency and scalability. With the PKM150, we’ve built a strong foundational model for this new platform that will offer our customers the opportunity to deploy more capital efficient sites, which will, in turn, allow them to build more charging sites across their networks.
—Tritium Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer David Finn
The PKM150 is the first fast-charging system to be announced on the new PKM architecture. The PKM150 system leverages Tritium’s patented liquid-cooled modular design—introduced with the company’s award-winning RTM fast charger—and provides customers with the opportunity to choose between 50kW, 100kW, or 150kW of dual-cable charging station power to meet their business needs.
The modular construction of these chargers makes them faster and easier to service and build compared to non-modular systems. Through the modular design, Tritium can provide customers with chargers, components, and modules that have been rigorously field tested and are interchangeable between models. This vision is already being realized, with up to 80% of the same components being used between the RTM and PKM150 charging stations.
The DC microgrid in the PKM architecture transmits power across the system at 950V DC rather than 400V AC. This design reduces the gauge of cabling in half, which can lead to up to tens of thousands of dollars in savings for small charging sites and hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings for large charging sites.
This announcement comes on the heels of the announcement of Tritium’s record-setting sales in the third calendar quarter of 2021, and precedes an anticipated public listing for the company on the NASDAQ in January 2022, through a business combination with Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation II.
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