In the port of Ghent, Electrabel has opened a charging station for electric cars that runs entirely on wind energy. It is connected to three new windmills that were recently placed next to the R4. They should produce about 33,000 megawatt hours per year. That would correspond to the annual energy requirement of about 11,000 electric cars.
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The station has two fast charging points for e-cars. If two cars load at the same time, this happens at a speed of 175 kW. This means that electricity can be recharged for about 200 kilometers in 20 minutes or less – although this depends on the charging capacities of the car. Not all cars support such speeds. Also, the charging speed usually decreases as the battery becomes fuller.
If only one car is charging, the speed can even reach 350 KW. That should add 100 kilometers in eight minutes, but there are no cars on the market that support such a high speed. According to Electrabel, the charging station is therefore ‘ready for the electric cars of the future’.
The pilot project will also be used as a test set-up for Laborelec, the research center of parent company Engie. It wants to collect data ‘for a further roll-out at strategic locations throughout Belgium’.
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