Customer application 16 December 2022
Grid Connection of Charging Infrastructure – Quick and Easy

The country needs charging stations. However, these must be connected with telecontrol technology – and in a grid-compliant way. The LEONHARD WEISS company offers this service and more all across Germany. At this company from Göppingen, Baden-Württemberg, the Station Design department relies on flexible hardware and software from WAGO – because the connections function quickly and easily in around two-thirds of all grid territories, and also because this choice lets them retain expertise and added value within the company and remain well-positioned for the future.

The development and expansion of charging infrastructure for e-mobility have become crucial for station design. “A large portion of our work currently focuses on e-mobility. This includes everything, not just charging stations – from the mains transfer point, to after-sales and maintenance services,” says Christian Kong-Lochbihler, Senior Site Engineer in the Station Design department at LEONHARD WEISS. With 20 employees, his department successfully constructs AC and DC high-power charging stations throughout Germany with a charging capacity up to 350 kW.

Connecting Charging Infrastructure – Here’s How WAGO Supports You:

A plug-and-play solution for quick and easy telecontrol connection of customer transfer stations
Grid-compliant connection in accordance with distribution network operators’ requirements (TCRs) in approximately three quarters of German medium-voltage grid territories
Modular, flexible solution components consisting of software and hardware – tailored to the needs of system integrators, switchgear manufacturers and station manufacturers alike.

Plug-and-Play Telecontrol Connection

As an experienced service provider, LEONHARD WEISS provides the entire value chain of e-charging technology, from the transformer station, to the roofs over charging stations, all from a single source. Their services range from initial consultation, site analysis, execution and commissioning, to operational management, service and maintenance. “We work for the three largest charging network operators in Germany,” says Kong-Lochbihler. “We implement telecontrol station connections according to the technical connection rules (TCRs) of many different grid operators. Using a telecontrol system and the WAGO Customer Substation application, we can fully handle around 80 percent of the different TCRs with a plug-and-play approach.

A Flexible System for Openness and Added Value

As an energy technology provider, WAGO came at the right time with its plug-and-play solution for the telecontrol connection of customer transfer stations. “Of course we took a look at what was on the market – we even checked out other telecontrol system producers that we had already used,” reports Christian Kong-Lochbihler. The problem was that these were often closed, proprietary systems. “But we didn’t want to tie ourselves completely to one option – we wanted to have in-house value creation and carry out the cable wiring and built-in tests ourselves, for example. This was astonishingly easy to do with WAGO,” he says. In Kong-Lochbihler’s eyes, the handling is another advantage: “The software is easy to understand and for my employees to operate.”

But we didn’t want to tie ourselves completely to one option – we wanted to have in-house value creation [...]. This was astonishingly easy to do with WAGO.

Christian Kong-Lochbihler, Head of the Station Design Department at LEONHARD WEISS

Two Separate Commissioning Steps

How does station commissioning actually work? There are two separate commissioning steps. “We do precommissioning with an I/O or built-in test. As soon as we receive the telecontrol system, the project is selected and the telecontrol system is then connected to the medium-voltage system in the production facility. We then do all the control wiring, the parameterization and a so-called pre-test, meaning an I/O pre-test using the switchgear unit.” This way, Christian Kong-Lochbihler and his colleagues can be sure that all the commands and messages are arriving correctly, the fieldbus connections work and the corresponding registry can be read out.

“Afterwards, everything is disassembled, delivered to the station manufacturer, rewired completely there again and then delivered to the transformer station as a complete unit.” Only then does the actual commissioning of the telecontrol system take place. “This step is done in collaboration with the corresponding grid operator. However, it’s done remotely: One of our technicians is on site, and our software commissioner logs in remotely and supervises everything from our headquarters in Göppingen.”

Cooperation Creates Added Value

“We can use the hardware/software solution from WAGO in the majority of our transfer stations in charging infrastructure projects, as well as for all of the service customers we supply.” In 2021, LEONHARD WEISS already installed 30 control cabinets that include parameterization software from WAGO, and another 40 have been ordered and planned for 2022 – these with an integrated modem. Collaboration with WAGO is also proceeding on another visualization. “We want to, and are able to, use this to create added value for us, as operators of a number of transformer stations, but also for our customers, because we’ll also have remote access to those stations after commissioning and will be able to monitor them.”

But we didn’t want to tie ourselves completely to one option – we wanted to have in-house value creation [...]. This was astonishingly easy to do with WAGO.

Christian Kong-Lochbihler, Head of the Station Design Department at LEONHARD WEISS

Establishing European Charging Network Connections is Tricky

As a construction company, LEONHARD WEISS is active in rail infrastructure construction, structural engineering, turnkey construction and roadway and network construction. It is currently one of the largest construction companies in southern Germany. Its activities are not restricted to Germany; it also has many types of customers across Europe, particularly in Northern and Eastern European countries.

The charging network is also being rolled out across Europe, and German vendors are expanding their charging networks with European locations. Aren’t charging infrastructure connections and operation also a market for Station Design at LEONHARD WEISS? Their response: “No, not at present.” This is because meeting all the technical connection rules is still trick, as Christian Kong-Lochbihler acknowledges. “The legal and technical requirements have very different forms and interpretations in different European countries. That’s why the LEONHARD WEISS Station Design department concentrates on the German market.” However, LEONHARD WEISS does not focus on one customer or one service, but as mentioned above, covers the entire value chain – from consulting, to transformer delivery, the creation of the network transfer point, delivery and construction of charging stations and charging infrastructure, as well as after-sales support and maintenance service. “We also handle operational tasks, like operational management of transformer stations, and carry out regular activities for AC and DC charging stations,” he says, citing the annual visual inspections and the retesting required by DGUV 3 as examples.

From Network Connection to Load and Energy Management

LEONHARD WEISS is a construction company with three different business divisions, so it does not consider e-mobility in isolation. One aspect involves the tender for the German network for fast charging sites and the large charging network operators, as well as car manufacturers, who are setting up and expanding their own charging hubs. The other involves the industries, businesses and residences connected to it, which also require retrofits for e-mobility. “We see a significant business opportunity here in particular.” Commerce and industry have to be approached a bit differently. “In this context, there is usually a transformer station, which is then retrofitted for charging infrastructure.” In addition to the physical space in the station, there are also various assets, like generating systems and loads, as well as buildings or production facilities, which can be linked to the charging infrastructure using dynamic load management. The challenges include system compatibility and interface management. WAGO has already been tasked with designing a load management system according to LEONHARD WEISS’s requirements.

Photos: LEONHARD WEISS

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