Helios Solar Charging Station
About Solum
Solum is a technology company that manufactures and markets solar stations for urban electric vehicles. Solum stations are the only ones that guarantee the safety and charging of vehicles with 100% renewable energy. This is possible since the stations generate their own energy thanks to the solar soil developed by the company, which is installed quickly and easily without causing any impact on the urban environment. From Solum they seek to help transform cities into more habitable, human and sustainable places; through technology and innovation.
Technical specifications
- Simultaneous charging of up to 16 vehicles
- 42V charging voltage with a current of 2A
- 16 smart anti-theft padlocks for safe parking of vehicles
- Operating temperature -30 to 70 °C
Provided services
- Custom electronic design and development
- Firmware design and development
- Prototyping
- Support in the manufacture of recurring units
Challenge
One of Solum’s main priorities is ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all people.
When Solum decided to build its electric mobility vehicle charging station, it found that there is no such technology on the market. The most similar one is designed for domestic use, and its integration into the desired solution would be inefficient and expensive.
In addition, for the total assembly of the system, a large number of different devices would be required, with different connection lines. This introduced a high cost of provision and assembly, as well as a higher probability of failure in operation.
Solum realized that it would need its own technology that would bring together all these functionalities in order to develop a resilient, inclusive and sustainable infrastructure, and thus be able to foster innovation.
Solution
To ensure that it could deliver a product that exceeded its customers’ expectations, Solum found that it did not have the knowledge to build such a solution from within the company.
In this way, Solum found in TEKHNĒ the ideal technological partner to carry out the requested project.
Guided by the years of accumulated experience of the TEKHNĒ team in the electronic development of robust, reliable and maintainable equipment throughout its life cycle, Solum achieved a product according to its needs and those of its customers.
To do this, TEKHNĒ carried out a modular electronic design that allowed Solum to flexibly configure the specific number of charging points that each station would have, thus optimizing costs and resources.
Thanks to a correct planning of the development calendar and the approach of the technical solution, it was possible to meet the manufacturing deadlines and costs initially foreseen.
Finally, aspects such as maintenance, thermal management, recycling and withdrawal of the product from the market were considered to guarantee optimal use and operation of the station throughout its lifecycle.
Results
Once the design was executed, Solum launched the manufacture of a series of charging stations that would be installed throughout the geography, not only Spanish but also European.
As a benchmark in technological innovation, Solum understands the importance of having a charging station that needs to be operational 24/7 with the fewest possible incidents.
The response obtained from the deployed teams has allowed Solum to improve the reliability of the charging system.
In addition, the collaboration with TEKHNĒ has made it possible to achieve a reduction in the production cost of the system as a whole, both directly and indirectly, thus reducing the efforts to purchase materials.
