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KPI results - baselines and final results

SEEV4-City is an innovation project funded by the European Union Interreg North Sea Region Programme. Its main objective is to demonstrate smart electric mobility and integration of renewable energy solutions and share the learnings gained. The project reports on the results of six Operational Pilots (OPs) which have different scales and are located in five different cities in four different countries in the North Sea Region.Loughborough OP (United Kingdom) is the smallest pilot, being a household with a bi-directional EV charging unit for the Nissan Leaf, a stationary battery, and a PV system. In the Kortrijk OP (Belgium), a battery system and a bi-directional charging unit for the delivery van (as well as a smart charging station for ebikes) were added to the energy system. In Leicester (United Kingdom), five unidirectional charging units were to be accompanied by four bi-directional charging units. The Johan Cruyff Arena OP is a larger pilot in Amsterdam, with a 2.8 MWh (partly) second life stationary battery storage for Frequency Control Regulation services and back-up power, 14 fast chargers and one bi-directional charger. Integrated into the existing energy system is a 1 MW PV system that is already installed on the roof. In the Oslo OP, 102 chargers were installed, of which two are fast chargers. A stationary battery energy storage system (BESS) supports the charging infrastructure and is used for peak shaving. The FlexPower OP in Amsterdam is the largest OP with over 900 EV charging outlets across the city, providing smart charging capable of reducing the energy peak demand in the evening.Before the start of the project, three Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were determined:A. Estimated CO2 reductionB. Estimated increase in energy autonomyC. Estimated Savings from Grid Investment Deferral

Making sense of the data

Charging an electric vehicle needs to be as simple as possible for the user. He needs to park his car, plug his vehicle and identify to start charging. There is no need to understand the technology and protocols needed to reach this simple task.For the students and researchers of the Amsterdam University of Applied Science (AUAS / HvA), there is a need to understand as deep as possible all the techniques involved in this technology.The purpose of this document is to give to the reader the information he needs to understand how an electric car can be charged and how he can use these knowledges to analyses and interpret data.

Increasing hosting capacity of low-voltage distribution network using smart charging based on local and dynamic capacity limits

While the Municipality of Amsterdam wants to expand the electric vehicle public charging infrastructure to reach carbon-neutral objectives, the Distribution System Operator cannot allow new charging stations where low-voltage transformers are reaching their maximum capacity. To solve this situation, a smart charging project called Flexpower is being tested in some districts. Charging power is limited during peak times to avoid grid congestion and, therefore, enable the expansion of charging infrastructure while deferring grid investments. This work simulates the implementation of the Flexpower strategy with high penetration of electric vehicles, considering dynamic and local power limits, to assess the impact on both the satisfaction of electric vehicle users and the business model of the Charging Point Operator. A stochastic approach, based on Gaussian Mixture Models, has been used to model different profiles of electric vehicle users using data from the Amsterdam public electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Several key performance indicators have been defined to assess the impact of such charging limitations on the different stakeholders. The results show that, while Amsterdam’s existing public charging infrastructure can host just twice the current electric vehicle demand, the application of Flexpower will enable the growth in charging stations without requiring grid upgrades. Even with 7 times more charging sessions, Flexpower could provide a power peak reduction of 57% while supplying 98% of the total energy required by electric vehicle users.

Behavior research report Flexpower

Final report – Amsterdam Flexpower Operational Pilot

This Vehicle-to-City (V2C) Operational Pilot, Flexpower, was deployed in two phases in Amsterdam from the beginning of March 2017 up to the end of May 2020 [1]. The first phase, defined as Flexpower 1, ran from March 2017 until end August 2018. The second phase, Flexpower 2, encompasses May 2019 – May 2020. The pilot is based on the architecture of the low voltage distribution system in Amsterdam, which is managed by Liander. Improving the utilisation rate of the electrical network is one of the goals of this project. The Flexpower pilot is not about the installation of new equipment but about using a smarter way to use it to push the limits of the system. The Flexpower pilot was used to test, improve and scale a smart charging solution which reduces the power available for charging EVs when the stress on the electricity network is already high and then allow faster charging when the available capacity is sufficient. For this purpose, capacity profiles were created.

SEEV4-city Flexpower 1

The city of Amsterdam set the ambitious target of having local zero emission transport in 2025. To achieve thischallenging goal, the network of public charging stations needs to be developed. This expansion will increasethe load on the local electrical network. To avoid overload and instability in the electrical distribution network,smart charging needs to be implemented.During a period of 8 months, from January to Augustus 2018, the Flexpower 1 pilot is one of the 6 pilots of theSEEV4-City project, supported by the North Sea Region Interreg programme.From the 2100 public charging stations present at this time across the city of Amsterdam, 102 were selected fora split-run testing. 50 of the charging stations were used as reference with a constant available charging currentof 25 A. The other 52 were deployed with a time dependent current limitation. During the peak hours, in themorning, from 7:00 to 8:00 and in the evening from 17:00 to 20:00, the current available for the charging stationsis limited to prevent overload. Outside these hours, the current is set to 35 A, a higher value than the referencestations.