This OP was deployed in two phases, focusing on Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) and Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G). Its first phase took place at a private residence in Loughborough and ran from March 2017 up to December 2017. This phase 1 is also referred to as the ‘Loughborough pilot’. The second phase took place from February 2020 until present at a comparable residence in Burton-upon-Trent, thereafter, referred to as the ‘Burton pilot’ or ‘phase 2’. Both pilots included bi-directional chargers, Electric Vehicles (EV), Battery Static Storage (BSS) and rooftop solar PhotoVoltaic panels (PV).The main goals of this pilot were to demonstrate the added value of V2H and V2G of using additional energy storage and PV in households.Challenges encountered in the project include interoperability issues, particularly in phase 1, and the unforeseen development of the homeowner selling his house, meaning a new location needed to be found. However, this challenge ultimately provided an excellent opportunity to implement lessons for interoperability and to act upon the recommendations from the intermediate analysis of the Loughborough pilot. This report is mainly focussed on phase 1 (Loughborough), and additional analysis for Burton-upon-Trent (phase 2) can be found in the appendix.
This paper presents data-driven insights from a case study that was carried out in an University EV charging plaza where EV charging demand is met with the combination of the University campus grid and installed solar capacity. First, we assessed the plaza dependency on the grid for meeting EV charging demand and intake of excess solar energy using the available dataset. By modifying the plaza network to accommodate a small approx. 50 kWh battery storage can significantly reduce the grid dependency of the plaza by approx. 30% compared to the present situation and can also increase the green energy utility for EV charging by 10-20%. Having an battery storage could also help overcome the limitations due to the campus grid capacity during EV charging peak demand by means of scheduling algorithms. Second, we assessed the utility rate of the plaza which indicated that the average utility of charging infrastructure is about 30% which has an increasing trend over the analysed period. The low utility and EV charging peak demand may be the result of current EV user behavior where the average idle time during charging sessions is found to be approx. 90 minutes. Reduction in idle time by one third may increase the capacity and utility of plaza by two to two and half times the forecasted daily demand. By having the campus grid capacity and user information may further help with effect EV demand forecasting and scheduling.
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
Electrohydrodynamic Atomization (EHDA), also known as Electrospray (ES), is a technology which uses strong electric fields to manipulate liquid atomization. Among many other areas, electrospray is used as an important tool for biomedical application (droplet encapsulation), water technology (thermal desalination and metal recovery) and material sciences (nanofibers and nano spheres fabrication, metal recovery, selective membranes and batteries). A complete review about the particularities of this tool and its application was recently published (2018), as an especial edition of the Journal of Aerosol Sciences. One of the main known bottlenecks of this technique, it is the fact that the necessary strong electric fields create a risk for electric discharges. Such discharges destabilize the process but can also be an explosion risk depending on the application. The goal of this project is to develop a reliable tool to prevent discharges in electrospray applications.
Thermal batteries, which store and release energy by hydrating and dehydrating salt crystals, hold great promise for domestic heating. Such batteries can be charged from waste heat from industrial processes, and discharged to provide neighbourhood heating. Unlike hot water storage systems, the energy is stored at room temperature, so the thermal losses are very low, making a salt battery highly efficient. However, the electrochemical change of the salt due to hydration and dehydration is very small, making it difficult to measure how much energy is stored in a battery. One promising technique is to measure the absolute humidity of the inlet and outlet air flow. The difference in humidity, combined with a rate equation model allows the total mass of water stored in the battery to be calculated, which can then be used to calculate the energy storage and battery power flow. However, there are several uncertainties in this approach. Commercially available sensors age over time, sometimes quite suddenly. It is not yet known if software can be used to compensate for sensor aging, or if a different sensor type is required. In addition to aging, each measurement is subject to random noise, which will be integrated into the model used to calculate the charge of the battery. It is not yet known how the noise will influence charge estimates. On the other hand, the sensor system must be as durable as domestic heating systems (decades). Hence, it is required to understand sensor aging in order to validate the sensor system for its intended use.
