Cottonwood
Roadster#433, Model S#S37
So, like Gaul, each SuperCharger is divided into three major components:
1. Arches that hold the charging cable/plug that connect to your MS.
2. The power transformer - Massive unit mounted on concrete pad outdoors, usually painted dark green. Adjacent is a smaller steel cabinet also on pad, for all the wire connections going into (from electric utility company) and out of the transformer (to the fenced-in area).
3. The fenced-in area containing vertical rack cabinets, one cabinet per pair of charging arches. Cabinets are about 24 inches wide and contain a dozen identical charger units stacked one above the other. They are each fed power from the transformer and their output goes to a pair of arches.
When Silverthorne CO was being tested by the Tech Guy from headquarters he had cabinets open on the east side but I didn't notice that the cabinets on the west side were the same as the ones on the east side. I thought maybe they were another type of unit like perhaps mercury vapor rectifiers (something old, something blue). :smile:
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Exactly, there is also a fourth major part (and a fifth if you count the conduits). Here is the complete list, starting at the utility side:
- The utility transformers. This is the large squat, dark-green object that is usually close to (but not inside) the enclosure containing the Tesla Supercharger gear. The High Voltage (HV), 3-Phase lines come from the utility to this transformer, and the output is 480 Volt (Delta or Line to Line), 277 Volt (Wye, Line to Neutral), 3-Phase power.
- The 480 Volt disconnect switches and circuit breakers.The power from the transformer goes to the Disconnect, Distribution, and Circuit breaker cabinets. These are usually light gray and made by Square D. They are just a giant version of the circuit breaker box in your house. In a typical install, the main feed in would be something like 800 or 1,000 Amp, 480 Volt 3-Phase service, and the output to each Supercharger Cabinet (rack, stack) is 200 Amps at 480 Volts with a neutral.
- The charge controller cabinets. Each of these is as light beige in color, is about 24 inches wide, and has a large hooded cooling air duct in the back. Each Supercharger Cabinet contains 12, identical, modular chargers that are the same as the one or two chargers in an MS. The ones being installed currently can put out a total of 120 kW DC, shared between 2 charging stalls. Each of the individual chargers is connected between one of the AC phases and Neutral. A "Wye" connection (Line to Neutral is 277 Volts and that's only a little more than the 250 Volts that the car chargers are spec'd for. If you look at the maximum draw from a 200 Amp breaker it is 160 Amps; 277 Volts * 160 Amps * 3 Phases is 133 kW. 133 kW AC in for 120 kW DC out is a perfect match for the chargers running at 90% efficiency or better.
- The pedestals (arches) at each charging stall.The pedestals at each charging stall are fed by the Supercharger cabinets and are where you find that nice, big cable and connector to plug into your MS. They are usually numbered 1A/1B, 2A/2B, etc. The numbers indicate the Supercharger Cabinet used, and the letters denote the pair of stalls serviced by each cabinet. The usual layout is 1A, 2A, ... 1B, 2B, ... This means that adjacent stalls are on different Supercharger Cabinets. If you want to make sure that you are getting maximum charging power, try to make sure that the paired stall (e.g. 1A paired with 1B) is not in use. If both charging stalls are in use, then priority is given to the first car to arrive, and the second car to arrive gets what's left over.
- The Conduits. These may seem mundane, but a big part of installing a Supercharger site, is putting in the interconnecting conduits. Putting these in, is the reason for all of the trenching and back fill that you see at most sites. Because of the high current in all of these wires, the wires are very large and therefore the conduits are very large.
- HV lines fromt the utility substation to the transformer.
- 480 Volt 3-Phase from the transformer to the circuit breaker cabinets.
- 480 Volt 3-Phase from the circuit breaker cabinets to the Supercharger cabinets.
- 400 Volt DC and signaling from the Supercharger cabinets to the pedestals.