Christmas arrives a week early for the EV-elocity project
The final week before Christmas was exceptionally busy for the EV-elocity project as not one, not two, but three (THREE!) V2G units were installed and commissioned by our contracted specialist installers The Phoenix Works with support from project partner and back-office provider CrowdCharge.
Last year was a tough year for many and the project has certainly had its issues to overcome. Yet 2020 ended on a hugely positive note with these installations marking the first, second and third units installed by the project since its restart in mid-2020.
The three units were installed at two EV-elocity demonstration sites, both external partners recruited by Cenex; Worcestershire County Council (1st unit) and West Midlands Police (2nd and 3rd units).
Worcestershire County Council
The first charger was installed at the headquarters of Worcestershire County Council, County Hall, in their underground staff car park. The test vehicle that will be used for the trial is a 2016 Nissan Leaf, used by the council as a pool car for staff to make visits in the local area. Due to the pandemic, the council offices are currently only home to a skeleton staff. However, previous vehicle records show that even when things return to normal and the full County Hall staff return, the vehicles will be used infrequently. This means they are parked and available to be plugged in – without needing to charge – for long periods of time.
West Midlands Police
The two units installed in the mezzanine car park at West Midlands Police HQ will be used to charge (and discharge!) two 2016 Nissan Leafs that are part of the non-emergency response fleet based at the site in central Birmingham. These vehicles are used as pool cars by staff to attend non-urgent appointments and enquiries in the city and the surrounding area. Like the pool cars at Worcestershire County Council, these vehicles spend much of their time parked and awaiting use.
The eNovates V2G Unit
All three chargers installed were supplied by eNovates, an electric vehicle charging solutions specialist based in Lokeren, Belgium. As well as providing wallbox and public charging solutions, eNovates design and manufacture a 10 kW bidirectional V2G unit. Cenex purchased five of these following a full due diligence and procurement exercise. More information on the eNovates unit coming soon.
A big challenge to get there, but a seamless installation process
All three installations were completed efficiently without incident within a working week by The Phoenix Works, with back-office commissioning done immediately after the units were networked by EV-elocity partner CrowdCharge‘s sub-contractor Hangar 19.
That said, for the on-site work to progress so smoothly, a considerable amount of work by a number of stakeholders had to happen behind the scenes in preparation. Look out for a follow up article going into the nitty gritty detail on the efforts involved with preparing for the installation.
Next steps for the EV-elocity project
For now, these installed V2G units are operating as chargers only, as they await instructions from a charge and discharge schedule. The project partners are working with back-office provider CrowdCharge to design and implement a series of test operations, planned to start by the end of Q1 2021.
As mentioned before, the trial vehicles at both Worcestershire County Council and West Midlands Police spend a large proportion of their time parked, not charging, and awaiting use – making them ideally suited to V2G. The EV-elocity project will allow the battery capacity to be used proactively when stationary. One potential strategy is to use the vehicle battery to balance the building’s energy needs by storing low-carbon energy and then subsequently discharging to displace more carbon-intensive energy.
To support this, we will also be affixing an additional sticker with contact details to allow users to reach the customer support team at CrowdCharge directly.
Meanwhile, the project is preparing for the next wave of installs at a number of project partner and external sites, as well as installing telemetry in the trial vehicles. Driving data will be collected and combined with the data obtained from the V2G units to enable the project to fully understand the interaction between the energy and transport systems.
Keep your eye out for follow-on articles with more updates from the EV-elocity project as the operational phase begins shortly!
Blog by Samuel Abbott. Sam is a Technical Specialist in the Energy Systems & Infrastructure team at Cenex. He has been using his expertise in EV charging hardware, including V2G, to manage the installations of the eNovates units for the EV-elocity project