Our Installations:
For those of you following us, you will be aware that we re-started our project with a new set of aims in the second half of 2020 and have since completed installations at Cenex, University of Nottingham and University of Warwick. Click the links to find out more.
Leeds City Council and Nottingham City Council will have news to share shortly, with project partner CrowdCharge working hard behind the scenes to get everyone operational.
But as we move into the trial proper, what are we intending to do and what value will this bring to the partners, funders and industry?
Our research objectives:
To remind you, the EV-elocity project’s objective is to:
Demonstrate Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) in a range of real-world situations to gain technical, customer and commercial insights into this emerging technology
We have 5 main aims (see our website homepage for more details), which we will address by answering these questions in our trial:
- Technical – can one platform and user interface successfully deliver V2G services across a range of UK locations and hardware?
- Operational – can the V2G services be delivered without impacting on the driver experience significantly?
- Cost Benefit – can V2G reduce the cost of driving an EV?
- Carbon Benefit – can V2G reduce the carbon intensity of driving an EV?
- Conditioning Benefit – can V2G extend the driving life of the EV?
Our Operational Strategy:
We have now agreed four principles to guide our activities and ensure we will deliver against our objective and aims.
- We will prioritise user needs.
This cuts right to the heart of why we’re a demonstrator and not simply a feasibility study. All sites will set a minimum vehicle State of Charge (SoC) which we will maintain at all times so that emergency or unplanned journeys can be completed. And all sites will specify a SoC at a particular time to ensure that each vehicle can complete its daily responsibilities unhindered. Our project will then explore the best ways to deliver benefits within these constraints.
- All chargers will complete the same tests at the same time.
We’re only small so to make sure we make the most of our chargers, they will all be optimised according to the same principles at the same time. Nottingham City Council may deviate here due to the commercial arrangements necessary for their installations but where possible everyone will be testing the same thing at the same time.
- We will not focus on grid-side services or revenues.
There are a lot of great V2G projects out there. Many are funded by Innovate UK and many are looking at the interesting topic of energy market participation and grid services. EV-elocity doesn’t want to duplicate their good work but add our unique value alongside them. And looking behind-the-meter focus links well with our project partners’ interests and overall aims.
- We will focus on the vehicle-user-building system.
Our focus on behind-the-meter activities is particularly interested in the inter-relation between the battery, driver and facility. This links very well to the University of Warwick’s battery research and the holistic approach that University of Nottingham is taking to the V2G user experience.
Our Plan
All this comes together in our plan to optimise for cost, carbon and (battery) conditioning. We’ll start testing on 1st May 2021, so check back here soon for news on how it has gone and what we have found out.
Chris Rimmer is the Infrastructure Strategy lead at Cenex, the UK’s centre of excellence for low carbon and fuel cell technologies. Chris is responsible for the overall project management for the EV-elocity project, ably assisted by the partners and their representatives.
#electricvehicles #EV #V2G #VehicleToGrid #RenewableEnergy
The Project EV-elocity is part of the Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) competition, funded by the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV), in partnership with Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation.
In January 2018, OZEV and BEIS announced that 21 projects (8 feasibility studies, 5 collaborative research and development projects, and 8 real-world v2g trial projects) were to receive funding of £30m to develop the business proposition and the core technology to support Vehicle 2 Grid deployment in the UK, including its demonstration with large scale trials.
The projects involve more than 50 industrial partners and research organisations from both the Energy and Automotive sector, marking the largest and most diverse activities on V2G in the world, and trialling more than 1,000 vehicles and V2G charger units across UK.
The V2G projects represent a significant step towards the transition to a low carbon transportation and a smart energy system. Allowing EVs to return energy to the Power Grid when parked and plugged for charging, will increase Grid resilience, allow for better exploitation of renewable sources and lower the cost of ownership for EV owners, leading to new business opportunities and clear advantages for EV users and energy consumers.