800 VDC power architecture for charging sites and fleet depots
Arete Intelligent Power's native 800 VDC architecture powers megawatt charging. Arete builds the conversion layer — medium voltage converted in a single stage to an 800 V DC bus, with storage on that same bus — and its power modules ship inside the chargers and conversion systems its partners build, under their enclosure, their certification, their brand. What stalls charging sites and fleet depots is the wait for grid power and the space the equipment takes, so a site that draws less peak power from the grid has less to interconnect and less to wait on.
What stalls a charging site
What stalls charging sites and fleet depots is the wait for grid power and the space the equipment takes. With storage designed into the block, the site draws less peak power from the grid — less to interconnect, less to wait on, fewer boxes on the pad — so charging goes live sooner, on tighter sites.
The interconnection queue is priced against peak demand, not average demand. A site whose peak is served partly from storage on its own DC bus presents a smaller connection to the utility than the same site serving every peak from the grid.
Arete's architecture powers megawatt charging
The distinction matters and Arete states it plainly: Arete's 800 VDC architecture powers megawatt charging. Arete does not deliver megawatt charging systems.
Arete builds the conversion layer that sits underneath them. Its power modules ship inside the chargers, conversion systems and storage products its partners build — under their enclosure, their certification, their brand. Arete innovates on conversion; partners build everything around it.
- Single-stage conversion from medium voltage, with no line-frequency transformer in the path
- Bi-directional — power flows both ways
- One platform across data center, storage-charging and micro-grid sites
- Arete supplies the conversion layer; charger and enclosure integration sits with our partners
Storage and chargers on the same bus
Because generation, storage and charging all meet on one 800 V DC bus, energy moving from storage to a vehicle does not pass through an AC stage on the way. Fewer conversions between the stored electron and the vehicle means fewer losses and fewer boxes.
The bus is bi-directional throughout, so the same path that charges a vehicle can take power back from it.
Common questions
What developers ask first
How does an 800 VDC architecture reduce the grid connection a charging site needs?
The connection is sized against peak demand. With storage on the site's own DC bus, part of each peak is served locally, so the peak the utility has to serve — and therefore the connection that has to be built and queued for — is smaller.
Less to interconnect is also less to wait on, which is usually the longer of the two costs.
Why does storage on the DC bus shorten time to energized capacity?
Storage on the DC bus sits on the same side of the conversion layer as the chargers, so it needs no separate AC coupling equipment of its own — fewer boxes on the pad, and a smaller equipment footprint for the same delivered power.
It also decouples what the site can deliver from what the utility has agreed to supply, which is what allows a depot to open on a connection that would otherwise be too small.
What does Arete supply into a megawatt charging system, and what do partners supply?
Arete supplies the conversion layer. Its power modules ship inside the chargers, conversion systems and storage products its partners build — under their enclosure, their certification, their brand.
Arete innovates on conversion. Partners build everything around it. Arete's 800 VDC architecture powers megawatt charging; Arete does not deliver megawatt charging systems.
Can power flow back from vehicles to the site?
The conversion layer is bi-directional, so power flows both ways through it — the same path that charges a vehicle can take power back from it, and storage on the bus can both absorb and supply.
What a specific installation does with that capability depends on the charger, the vehicle and the utility agreement, which sit with our partners and the site owner rather than with the conversion layer.
Which configuration fits your site?
A few questions about how power reaches your equipment. You will see the configuration we would propose, and you can request the documentation for it in the same step.