DATS 24 and Alfen work together to elevate the Belgian EV charging infrastructure

Colruyt Group, via its subsidiary DATS 24, continues their partnership with Alfen. What started as a trial collaboration in 2015 has led to 1000+ EV charge points installed throughout Belgium… in locations from grocery stores and a few fuel stations, to staff’s homes and office locations. 

Challenge

DATS 24 has been rapidly rolling out its EV charging operations to provide infrastructure across Colruyt Group supermarkets, homes of EV driving staff and office locations. By 2021, DATS 24 had already installed 330 Alfen charge points (type Eve Double Pro-line) at supermarkets across the country, and they are tripling this capacity in 2022.

Solution

Hundreds of Colruyt Group staff members are equipped with Alfen’s Eve Single Pro-line: a single socket EV charging station, suitable for business and home use that can be wall or pole mounted.

For car parks at semipublic locations, like supermarkets and other retail sites, DATS 24 chose Alfen's flagship for semi-public spaces: the Eve Double Pro-line. Its rugged case is designed for high usage and regular user changeovers, and it can be wall or pole mounted (in this case two stations on 1 pole, mounted back-2-back). The station houses 2 sockets, with optional Load Balancing across both.

For these locations where multiple double charging stations are operating in a charging plaza, DATS 24 uses Smart Charging Network. It’s Alfen’s advanced and in house developed charging plaza technology that lets our customers connect up to 100 charge points in a smart and flexible way. The customer can rapidly expand charge capacity over time by adding more charging stations.

Smart Charging Network operates as a ‘social’ charging network, without so called ‘masters’ and ‘slaves’. This means all charging stations align their charging speed among each other to maximise grid capacity, allowing as many EVs as possible to charge at the same time and to avoid blackouts. While configured and functioning as a group, the charging stations remain individually approachable and controllable. This way the customer remains in control over the network.

Technical details

Both the Eve Single Pro-line as well as the Eve Double Pro-line models have a full-colour display, with the ability for customers to customise the stations with their branding. The charging stations for this customer have been wrapped by a third company, enabling DATS 24’s recognisable and eye-catching brand.

At the charging plazas, like the one at Colruyt Group headquarters in Halle, you see two Eve Double Pro-lines mounted on one pole. This special pole was custom made by a third party. Based on our customers’ feedback, Alfen plans to offer this customisation as a product accessory over time.

Rollout

An initial pilot EV charging project took place in 2015. Today, the company operates 1000+ Alfen EV charge points. The framework agreement with Colruyt Group and Alfen has been extended for the third time.

DATS 24's technical teams and their partner Pluginvest install the charging equipment. Their electrical engineers have been trained to ensure a safe and efficient installation process.