Supercharger - Coalinga, CA (LIVE 15 Dec 2022, 80 stalls)

[MarcoRP]

Last week, Tesla filed a permit for what will be the world's largest Supercharger, at Harris Ranch in Coalinga (24553 W Dorris Ave). According to my sources, at least 80 V3 Superchargers will be installed (in addition to the 18 existing stalls) in a new paved parking lot in the truckers rest area, behind the Shell station and Tesla's battery swap area. In a similar setup to Firebaugh, there will be a solar canopy over most or all of the stalls, as well as a battery storage system.

Tesla may also be adding extra stalls to the 24505 W Dorris Ave Supercharger, according to a separate permit filed at the beginning of March. Also, based on what was said about Patterson possibly getting Semichargers, it leads me to believe Harris Ranch may get some as well, especially since the new Supercharger will be built in the truck lot, though I don't have anything else to back that up.

The permit is currently in pending review status since it was just filed. The expansion (marked as Coalinga, CA) is due to open in Q3 per Find Us.

Photo from Drive Tesla Canada

 

[Cheburashka]

Wow. 98 chargers total?

 

[captanzuelo]

Very cool. And right at the north end of the airport. When EV planes start taking flight, maybe a Tesla plane can charge there as well!

 

[mociaf9]

Last week, Tesla filed a permit for what will be the world's largest Supercharger, at Harris Ranch in Coalinga (24553 W Dorris Ave). According to my sources, at least 80 V3 Superchargers will be installed (in addition to the 18 existing stalls) in a new paved parking lot in the truckers rest area, behind the Shell station and Tesla's battery swap area. In a similar setup to Firebaugh, there will be a solar canopy over most or all of the stalls, as well as a battery storage system.

Tesla may also be adding extra stalls to the 24505 W Dorris Ave Supercharger, according to a separate permit filed at the beginning of March. Also, based on what was said about Patterson possibly getting Semichargers, it leads me to believe Harris Ranch may get some as well, especially since the new Supercharger will be built in the truck lot, though I don't have anything else to back that up.

The permit is currently in pending review status since it was just filed. The expansion (marked as Coalinga, CA) is due to open in Q3 per Find Us.

Wait, so it turns out that the real gag in your April Fool's Day thread about a 100 STALL SUPERCHARGER being built was that it wasn't actually a gag and you just had bad information on the proposed location? How did we not see that coming?

 

[pb2000]

At what point does a supercharger justify its own substation? Gotta be closing in on 9MW of peak demand.

 

[jboy210]

I wonder if some other charging network is going in with Tesla. Tesla already has a lot of other chargers just down I-5 in Kettleman City and Firebaugh. I could see Tesla relocating and expanding their chargers, and someone like EA adding their chargers. Both Tesla and EA share the same rows for their chargers at the Livermore outlet mall.

 

[TerranApart]

At what point does a supercharger justify its own substation? Gotta be closing in on 9MW of peak demand.

Wondering the same: where will they get all the power?
There's some underground 12kV there, but nothing larger in the near vicinity as far as I can tell.
I wonder if they will be making up the difference with the battery storage units.

 

[pb2000]

Wondering the same: where will they get all the power?
There's some underground 12kV there, but nothing larger in the near vicinity as far as I can tell.
I wonder if they will be making up the difference with the battery storage units.

There is a major substation about 16km south, but several of the HV lines connected to it run right past the supercharger. You can't just casually tap into a >100kV transmission line though, so we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[captanzuelo]

Wondering the same: where will they get all the power?
There's some underground 12kV there, but nothing larger in the near vicinity as far as I can tell.
I wonder if they will be making up the difference with the battery storage units.

It will be powered by a methane powerplant, courtesy of the tens of thousands of cattle roaming in nearby Harris Ranch.

 

[SMAlset]

Holey Cow! (Thought appropriate comment for cow country).

@MarcoRP, “battery SWAP area”??

 

[SMAlset]

I wonder if some other charging network is going in with Tesla. Tesla already has a lot of other chargers just down I-5 in Kettleman City and Firebaugh. I could see Tesla relocating and expanding their chargers, and someone like EA adding their chargers. Both Tesla and EA share the same rows for their chargers at the Livermore outlet mall.

Tesla SCs in my area have Tesla installed ChargePoints in the same row for L2 J1772s. On the city permits I read Tesla was installing the L2s which were always ChargePoints. No idea if Tesla supplied the units or CP did, just that Tesla added them at the same time as theirs went in, thinking as an accommodation to the store with the parking lot being used who wanted non-Tesla charging option as well.

Interesting to hear about EA. Wonder if Tesla installed them or more likely EA thru their program came in and installed there in the same row because that's already where the underground utilities for the parking lot lights are.

 

[Chuq]

At what point does a supercharger justify its own substation? Gotta be closing in on 9MW of peak demand.

Remember that although every stall is 250 kW, they don’t need to allow for anywhere near that simultaneously across the entire site. Someone did the maths with the first major V3 site in Las Vegas and the substation allowed for about 110 kW per stall if split equally.

Of course it will still be a massive substation but smaller than (250 * stall count)

 

[miimura]

Remember that although every stall is 250 kW, they don’t need to allow for anywhere near that simultaneously across the entire site. Someone did the maths with the first major V3 site in Las Vegas and the substation allowed for about 110 kW per stall if split equally.

Of course it will still be a massive substation but smaller than (250 * stall count)

"the maths" are based on the Supercharger V3 cabinet rating label. Each cabinet that serves 4 stalls can only draw 350kVA from the grid. The simple math says that the average draw across all V3 stalls cannot exceed about 80kW. There is also a 575kW DC bus that connects the cabinets together so that 4 cars connected to one cabinet can draw more than the AC connection alone can support. In theory, batteries can also be installed on that DC bus, further increasing the power delivered to cars without increasing the AC grid draw. I have not seen evidence that this has been done in public installations though. Sites like Santa Rosa California have Powerpacks and a Tesla inverter, so that would reduce grid demand but not increase the DC power available to charge cars.

 

[jboy210]

Tesla SCs in my area have Tesla installed ChargePoints in the same row for L2 J1772s. On the city permits I read Tesla was installing the L2s which were always ChargePoints. No idea if Tesla supplied the units or CP did, just that Tesla added them at the same time as theirs went in, thinking as an accommodation to the store with the parking lot being used who wanted non-Tesla charging option as well.

Interesting to hear about EA. Wonder if Tesla installed them or more likely EA thru their program came in and installed there in the same row because that's already where the underground utilities for the parking lot lights are.

Makes sense for EA to put them in the same power. It was a premiere site for EA, where they installed the 1st 350kW charger. There are 20 Tesla Urban chargers + 12 EA chargers. Electrify America turns on first 350-kw fast charger in California (greencarreports.com)

 

[eladts]

Remember that although every stall is 250 kW, they don’t need to allow for anywhere near that simultaneously across the entire site. Someone did the maths with the first major V3 site in Las Vegas and the substation allowed for about 110 kW per stall if split equally.

Of course it will still be a massive substation but smaller than (250 * stall count)

If we look at the Firebaugh site, there are two clusters of 7 V3 cabinets, each with its own transformer. It looks like this site will have three such clusters. Since each cluster can have up to seven cabinets, Tesla could have built a 84 stall site. Perhaps there will be 21 V3 cabinets on the site with one of them dedicated to the Megacharger.

 

[1100MCM]

If we look at the Firebaugh site, there are two clusters of 7 V3 cabinets, each with its own transformer. It looks like this site will have three such clusters. Since each cluster can have up to seven cabinets, Tesla could have built a 84 stall site. Perhaps there will be 21 V3 cabinets on the site with one of them dedicated to the Megacharger.

I think most utilities like to size pad mount transformers no larger than 2500 or 3000 kVA. There’s several considerations for this including safety and fault current availability.

For these sites, even with an 80 stall V3 like this, which could pull about 7 MW if maxed out, it is far from needing its own substation. There are substation distribution transformers that can handle 41.7 MVA which would be far from being maxed out by a large Tesla site. Even one distribution feeder (a substation transformer could typically supply four or so distribution feeders) would be plenty for a much larger station than 80 V3 stalls as a typical single distribution feeder at 12 kV can handle 12 MW or so.

 

[ElectricCyclist]

If we look at the Firebaugh site, there are two clusters of 7 V3 cabinets, each with its own transformer. It looks like this site will have three such clusters. Since each cluster can have up to seven cabinets, Tesla could have built a 84 stall site. Perhaps there will be 21 V3 cabinets on the site with one of them dedicated to the Megacharger.

I believe your hypothesis is what is going to be installed here as I have also heard that 7 cabinets is the max per service that Tesla will install due to limitations in their DC shared bus design. Remember each cabinet on the DC side is shared so you could be pulling power from any one of the cabinets on this bus when you charge your vehicle and Tesla manages their cabinets power output through control systems.

 

[Chuq]

Perhaps there will be 21 V3 cabinets on the site with one of them dedicated to the Megacharger.

A bit speculative.. but in this case, it could be right. I looked up the permit and there doesn't seem to be any more details (no plans/layout info, etc) yet - not even any reference to the 80 stalls. I think we can expect some Cybertruck-friendly layout or spaces here too.

Remember with the Semi, Tesla is a member of CharIN's MCS (Megawatt Charging System) group, which has designed (not publicly, yet) a plug style capable of... as it says, well over 1MW - and will be the same for all manufacturers. So it's likely not going to be shared with Cybertrucks. However, the location is perfect for an initial Megacharger location, much as it was perfect as one of the initial Supercharger locations all those years ago!

 

[pb2000]

Remember that although every stall is 250 kW, they don’t need to allow for anywhere near that simultaneously across the entire site. Someone did the maths with the first major V3 site in Las Vegas and the substation allowed for about 110 kW per stall if split equally.

Of course it will still be a massive substation but smaller than (250 * stall count)

As mentioned, V3 is 4 stalls to a cabinet at 350kva, so 7MW right there, the existing V2's are 2 stalls to a cabinet, probably 165kva-ish each, so another 1.5MW there. The surrounding hotels and other business might also account for another ~2MW, especially in cooling season. That's ~280A on a 12.4kV 3 phase line, so I guess not that bad now that I've done the math.

 

[TerranApart]

There is a major substation about 16km south, but several of the HV lines connected to it run right past the supercharger. You can't just casually tap into a >100kV transmission line though, so we'll just have to wait and see.

That makes sense, especially since the nearby lines are both 500kV.
PG&E requires a private customer substation for any loads 2000V or more and a high enough power draw; but seeing that Tesla stays with 480V for everything so far, I think they'll likely avoid having a separate substation. They'll probably end up with a few 3750kVA distribution transformers, similar to their other larger sites. Even so, ~7MW is a lot of power. I wonder if they'll offset some peak demand with the battery storage.
Looking forward to seeing what happens...