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What our customers think: Charge Amps
WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS THINK
Charge Amps wanted to determine the climate footprint of their premium design charging stations for passenger cars. The life cycle analysis carried out by IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute provided the company with confirmation that they were on the right path. It also opened the door to improvements.
“We have done an important job together with IVL, and I’ve noticed that our customers think so too. Our sales staff receive a great many questions, and we’ll soon be launching the results more widely,” says Ingrid Nordmark, Chief Technical Officer at the company.
Charge Amps is a company that manufactures premium design charging stations for homes and businesses. They are aimed at people who want a slightly cheekier look by their garage door, as Adam Lewrén, an expert at IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, puts it.
The company was born when the founder purchased an electric car in 2012 and faced a desperate lack of good charging solutions. He started developing his own at home at the kitchen table. Today, Charge Amps is growing strongly, their charging stations are selling well and the company has recently conducted a rights issue in order to make further progress.
The charging stations – Charge Amps Aura and Charge Amps Halo – are named after light phenomena. When the company was in the starting blocks to begin developing the next generation of Charge Amps Halo, Ingrid Nordmark had the idea of carrying out a thorough analysis of the product’s climate impact.
“We wanted to know more about our product from a climate perspective. We were just about to start the development of a new generation, and the best way is to learn lessons from what we’ve already done,” says Ingrid Nordmark.
Ingrid Nordmark has worked at research institutes herself, so the decision to collaborate with IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute was not a particularly difficult one.
“I know they have a great deal of knowledge there. That IVL is at the forefront as regards research, but that they also understand the language of industry. This was crucial for us.” IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute is the body in Sweden with perhaps the greatest experience in life cycle analyses (LCAs).
The parts for Charge Amps Halo are manufactured in China and
then shipped to Sweden, where they are assembled. Most of the company’s sales are to Swedish customers. The mechanics officer and the electronics designer at Charge Amps supplied IVL’s experts with data.
Adam Lewrén and Karin Sanne from IVL were assigned to work on the LCA. They produced an overview of which aspects have a major or minor impact on the climate. What things were important to calculate precisely and where they could use standard calculations. Ingrid Nordmark:
“Everything was done extremely professionally. IVL’s experts were highly successful at extracting information, developing complex connections and, moreover, summarising them in a clear manner. As usual, they took account of everything that happens to the product and its parts, from material consumption, production and transport to how the product itself is used – and finally disposal.
“Everything from the cradle to the grave,” says Ingrid Nordmark. Adam Lewrén, IVL:
“It’s a complex product with many parts. The electronics were difficult to assess, and the product was difficult to model because we didn’t have any specific data about its contents or how it was manufactured. But it went well, Charge Amps were quick to produce data and they followed our template very closely, so everything went smoothly.”
The work was launched with a couple of Teams meetings in November 2020. After that, much of the work was completed by the end of the year.
So what were the results?
The Charge Amps Halo charging station has a climate impact in the production phase, but less than had been expected.
“The results were good, it has to be said. It’s not common at the moment for charging stations to undergo life cycle analyses, so it’s hard to compare. I haven’t found that many, and the ones I have found are produced using different methods than the ones we use,” said Adam Lewrén.
The parts that had the greatest impact on the climate were the cables, aluminium parts and other parts where the company might consider using recycled materials in order to reduce the impact. By contrast, the shipments from China produce so little in the way of emissions that they are barely discernible in the analysis. That surprised Ingrid Nordmark.
“I had been expecting completely different results there. We even factored in the small number of air shipments we sometimes resort to when we’re in a hurry. I was prepared to move the manufacturing operation out of China, but realised that we don’t need to do this for the sake of the climate benefits,” she says. However, IVL did identify another source of emissions that was a little unexpected. Charge Amps Halo has a standby function that draws a certain amount of electricity. In Sweden, which produces a lot of electricity from fossil-free sources, this results in relatively little carbon emissions. But it’s a different picture in Germany, where a proportion of the electricity comes from coal-fired power stations.
“Based on a German or European electricity mix, standby consumption has a pretty significant impact. Charge Amps was probably not fully prepared for that,” explains Adam Lewrén.
This year, Charge Amps has familiarised itself with the results and involved the staff in them.
“The process has been important for our own employees. They have learned a great deal and realised that it is necessary to be fact-based and not emotional when making judgements. I want to make this part of the day-to-day work. The work done together with IVL should not be an ‘add-on’, but rather be integrated into the business,” says Ingrid Nordmark.
Charge Amps has also set in motion conceptual work regarding changes to the next generation of charging stations.
“We’re going to be looking even more at reducing the climate load. How we can ensure that the parts are easy to recycle. And maybe we shouldn’t include an unnecessarily long cable, which often just gets in the way. We will also think about how to reduce energy consumption in stand-by mode,” says Ingrid Nordmark.
But isn’t the company taking a bit of a risk by performing an LCA? What if the results are negative?
“Of course, but the important thing is that we’re constantly learning. And the results were good. But if it had turned out that Charge Amps Halo was having a significant impact, we would have worked on phasing it out,” said Ingrid Nordmark, Chief Technical Officer at Charge Amps.
OM CHARGE AMPS
• Formed in 2012 • Recently conducted a rights issue worth MSEK 130. • The Charge Amps Halo charging station has been designed by Ikea designer Carl Öjerstam. • The life cycle analysis of the Charge Amps Halo II charging station was conducted alongside IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute during the period November 2020 – February 2021.
