For this Company Spotlight, we interviewed Veloce’s CEO, Jeff Wolfe, about how the company is making electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure and grid-edge energy storage faster, easier, and less expensive to deploy. Veloce is a technology provider enabling the electrification of transportation by removing the physical and financial barriers to EV charging and the development of grid-edge infrastructure. For more information on Veloce, please visit www.veloceenergy.com.

Background: After serving in various leadership roles in the renewable energy industry for over 30 years, including positions at Tritium, groSolar, Shell, and Just Energy, Jeff Wolfe founded Veloce in 2020 with the goal of advancing grid-edge technology to better serve a more electrified economy. With grid connections being costly and difficult to obtain (hundreds of thousands of dollars or more and 18-24 months lead time), Veloce developed a patent-pending technology, FastGrid, that can be easily deployed in any situation. FastGrid consists of the following components:

VPort (Energy Storage): A modular and intelligent energy storage platform that includes a power conversion system as well as batteries (the power conversion is available in multiples of 40 kW, and the batteries are available in multiples of 78 kWh). VPort’s thin and compact profile enables it to be deployed in areas that most battery storage systems cannot. Further, its ability to be reconfigured in the field and parallelable means that VPort can be scaled to fit the needs of a location as demand changes over time.
FastConnect (Power Distribution): Instead of having to dig and trench (as well as obtain the associated permitting and design) to connect to substations or transformers, FastConnect provides an overhead solution that is much faster and more cost-effective to deploy while also offering the flexibility to easily expand in the future. FastConnect is designed to primarily deliver power. Communications and other services can already be distributed along with the power.
ARGOS (Software): A holistic, single-pane-of-glass software platform and dashboard that provides users with easy access to operational intelligence and insights as well as a channel for secure transactions. As the electrical grid becomes more and more distributed, the need for bidirectional communication through software solutions will only grow.

Use Cases: Veloce’s technology offering is garnering the most customer interest for the following applications:

EV Charging Infrastructure: The ability to deploy EV charging stations without the need to dig or trench reduces both CapEx and deployment time by ~50%. Further, Veloce’s technology is compatible with any charger brand and power level, providing the flexibility to expand and/or switch charger types easily in the future.
Commercial & Industrial Energy Storage: Veloce’s ability to install battery storage in virtually any location at a low cost makes deploying energy storage for commercial and industrial customers a much quicker and cost-effective solution.
Non-Wire Grid Upgrade Alternative: Enables the power grid to be quickly upgraded without having to run new powerlines, as Veloce’s technology fits in the right of way already acquired and provides a secure interface.

Closing Thoughts: As the economy continues to be more and more electrified, electrical grid infrastructure will need to be improved to better service increasingly decentralized demand at the edge. We look forward to following Veloce, as technologies like FastGrid will be a key factor in how quickly society can make the transition.

Company Spotlights

October 2021