Supercharger - Arlington, TX

[CarlS]

In a story that had nothing to do with Tesla, the local NBC station filmed the construction site. It is a story of possibly driverless shuttles (with an attendant on board) taking passengers around the parking lots near the Cowboy's and Ranger's stadiums. Skip to 57 seconds into the video if you're only interested in the Tesla site. This was filmed during the day on Monday, shortly before they poured the foundation for the supercharger cabinets, which they were just finishing at 5:00 pm on Monday, when I drove past.

Self-Driving Shuttles Could Come To Arlington By May

 

[fwgmills]

I live just south of downtown Arlington, just off of Center Street, but north of Pioneer, so that's pretty close to where you used to be. I work near DFW airport and I drive near this site on the way to and from work, so it's just natural that I would stop by on my way home most evenings.

I worked from home on Thursday, so I took my wife with me that evening and confessed that I haven't been going to "gentlemen's clubs" after work, I'd been checking out the Tesla supercharger site. I have a problem.

I think I see you on PlugShare.

The neighborhood where I used to live was just east of Vandergriff Park. That entire neighborhood was built with those old Zinsco Service Panels so it would have cost me another few thousand dollars to install charging at that house because I would have had to replace the entire panel. It was my first house and I miss it, but I don't miss the neighbors or the black clay soil the house was built on.

 

[jaysquyres]

Curious to see how huge the Transformer wires are? Oncor just finished running them:

 

[jrreno]

Curious to see how huge the Transformer wires are? Oncor just finished running them:
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Looks like there will be block walls around the cabinets given the reinforcing rod.
Also if they ran the cable from the transformer why isn't it coming out of the conduits in the pad?

Thanks for the pictures!

 

[jaysquyres]

Looks like there will be block walls around the cabinets given the reinforcing rod.
Also if they ran the cable from the transformer why isn't it coming out of the conduits in the pad?

Thanks for the pictures!

Oncor runs wires to transformer, then installer takes over on customer side.

 

[jrreno]

Oncor runs wires to transformer, then installer takes over on customer side.

Oh, so those are the high voltage wires to the primary side of the transformer, got it. Thanks

 

[fwgmills]

Holy crap those are some big wires. I thought "neighborhood" power lines were 7-14.4kv and these are 25kv.
Shows what I know.

 

[ED BENSON]

Please note that is not a transformer but the switch gear to supply power to the transformer and any other circuits down stream from here.

 

[jaysquyres]

Please note that is not a transformer but the switch gear to supply power to the transformer and any other circuits down stream from here.

Correct. This box is where heavy power is split, and continues to the Transformer. Oncor appears to be finished, and this will be a Gen 2 Super Charger. I was really hoping it was going to be a Gen 3 with such heavy power - but it's not going to be. If inspections allow, we could be live in a week:

 

[CarlS]

jaysqyres, how did you know I couldn't make it to the site for a few days? You posted pictures on the days that I couldn't drive past. Awesome. I was surprised by how much had been done since my last visit. I'll skip some of my pictures as they've already been posted.

As seen above, they have started installing the supercharger cabinets, but now they're connecting them to the electrical boxes which will connect to the main power. Here is an inside look at the tall electrical cabinets. You can see that the four conduits leading back to the main power are still empty (except for the ropes to pull the cables through), but the 5 conduits that lead to the superchargers have cables run:

Here is a wider view of the same side:

Here is the view from the other side:

In the above picture, the five conduits in the middle lead to the cabinet in the foreground (the same one that connects to the superchargers).

They had some spare cable portions on the ground under and through the orange fencing. These are nowhere near the size of the city cables, but still a heavy cable:

Here is the label on a spool of the cable that I found as I was leaving:

And here is a closer picture of the back of a supercharger with the cables not completed. Each cabinet had a grounding wire already attached. There are four black cables and one, much thinner, green cable per supercharger.

 

[fwgmills]

I've never seen the inside of a supercharger cabinet so I'm guessing that behind the silver panel on the left side must be the power-in (single conduit pipe) and the HVDC cables connect to the silver panel on the right side, but aren't run yet because of the empty two conduits on the right. Since it looks like all the pieces are already mounted on the pad I have to wonder what the remaining 5 conduits sticking out of the concrete are for. Anyone have any idea?

 

[jaysquyres]

I've never seen the inside of a supercharger cabinet so I'm guessing that behind the silver panel on the left side must be the power-in (single conduit pipe) and the HVDC cables connect to the silver panel on the right side, but aren't run yet because of the empty two conduits on the right. Since it looks like all the pieces are already mounted on the pad I have to wonder what the remaining 5 conduits sticking out of the concrete are for. Anyone have any idea?

I suspect it's for Gen 3 Upgrade. This is being installed as Gen 2 (120kw per charger) but Elon has tweeted about having chargers greater than 350kw. Reasons I believe this are:


A. Anyone that has seen the Superchargers at other locations know there is 2 tall distribution cabinets (Red) and the white cabinet with the 12 chargers in them (Green,) that goes to 2 Dispenser units (Blue.)

B. The transformers here are much larger than other sites, as is the wiring between them.

C. The 4 Fat Red pipes are the 480 Volt 3 phase coming in from the transformer: L1, L2, L3, Common.

D. The 5 Fat Green pipes go to each White cabinet, also with 4 wires and the Green Ground.

E. There are 5 extra pipes with spaces for them at this location (Orange.) These are not used at other locations, and I suspect it's for Gen 3 equipment to get to 500kw per charger (up from 120kw.)

 

[8lincoln30]

Drove by the site at about 2:15 p.m. today on my way to work at the ballpark; there was a construction van out there so hopefully they're working hard to get it done by the first homestand of the season (today and tomorrow are mere exhibition games). Looking forward to the next set of pics from you guys!

 

[hyperlite1]

I suspect it's for Gen 3 Upgrade. This is being installed as Gen 2 (120kw per charger) but Elon has tweeted about having chargers greater than 350kw. Reasons I believe this are:


A. Anyone that has seen the Superchargers at other locations know there is 2 tall distribution cabinets (Red) and the white cabinet with the 12 chargers in them (Green,) that goes to 2 Dispenser units (Blue.)

B. The transformers here are much larger than other sites, as is the wiring between them.

C. The 4 Fat Red pipes are the 480 Volt 3 phase coming in from the transformer: L1, L2, L3, Common.

D. The 5 Fat Green pipes go to each White cabinet, also with 4 wires and the Green Ground.

E. There are 5 extra pipes with spaces for them at this location (Orange.) These are not used at other locations, and I suspect it's for Gen 3 equipment to get to 500kw per charger (up from 120kw.)

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I agree, I have not seen anything other than the white cabinets and the distribution boxes at other locations and this pad is larger than others I have seen.

It is odd that the extra conduits only run back to the distribution box and nothing towards the site of the car charging units (as seen in previous picture of this site before slab was poured).

If it were Gen 3 you would think they would have to run wiring both directions and not just to the distribution box?? I may not be making any sense so please correct me if I am wrong.

Maybe power packs could go there to store solar energy to be pushed out to the chargers throught the distribution boxes??

 

[hyperlite1]

Looks like Tesla has used battery storage in the past at supercharger sites to help with utility costs per the link below. Maybe they will just use Powerpack 2 to avoid some of the peak use charges?

https://www.quora.com/Will-Teslas-supercharger-network-use-its-power-pack-storage

 

[fwgmills]

Holy crap...power packs make perfect sense. One set of conduits only running to the switch/distribution gear; 5 conduits, 5 chargers, 5 power packs. :O

They could also use power packs to give the chargers the extra energy they would need to push above 120kw without making the transformer cry.

 

[CarlS]

I liked the V3 possibility proposed, but the Powerpack makes more sense, to me, especially with the wiring from the 5 locations only going to the cabinets. I don't know what it would take to upgrade above 120kW - hopefully they're planning for the future with their current installations.

In the meantime, it looks like they're done wiring the superchargers to the distribution cabinets. The cabinets were completely closed up - obviously they can be reopened, to do more work, but I couldn't get a picture inside this time, so I just took a picture of the wiring to the backs of the superchargers. There is still a lot of work to be done in the trench where the charging stalls will be. They haven't done anything there in several days - still only two locations nearly ready for foundations (no wiring done yet). The other 8 spots haven't had the conduit completed, nor the frames and rebar placed. I don't think these will be done for the start of the baseball season tomorrow.

Here is the back of two of the superchargers:

 

[jaysquyres]

Getting an update last night during the TX Rangers Home Opener was not easy. I'm guessing as to why there has been a delay for the Dispensers: They didn't dig deep enough. There are more placed, but very wet. Looks like they dug deeper and there is more space under the Dispenser forms. I bet they pour concrete in the forms tomorrow:

 

[CarlS]

I drove by early this afternoon, so they didn't make me pay for parking (for the baseball game) and snapped a couple of pictures. There was no noticeable change to the Supercharger cabinets, but all 10 stall foundation forms look complete with conduit going to each one, gravel at the bottom, and rebar in place. No wiring has been run through the conduits, yet.

They all looked nearly identical to this one:

 

[jaysquyres]

Forms are poured and they are filling in the dirt. Installing the Dispensers next week:

The electrician ran his lines from the Transformer to the Distribution cabinet:

This Transformer converts 12,470 Volts down to 3-phase 480 Volts:

I asked about the Tesla batteries going into the vacant spot. It will NOT be batteries or Gen 3 he says. It will be for additional transformers (if needed.) Sometimes they can't get the voltage perfect, so they need additional line transformers. He said they installed systems like these in Sulphur Springs, when they can't get the exact voltages they need. He expects the spaces to stay empty since Oncor is pretty Solid.

There is your Friday update...