Smart Mobility V2X

The applied research project "Smart mobility with sustainable e-car sharing and bidirectional V2X" (duration January 2019 to March 2022) examined how new solutions for smart mobility can be developed in an area with multi-stakeholder management. To this end, an e-car sharing system with 2 bidirectional electric vehicles was set up for residents in the Erlenmatt Ost area of Basel, an association for self-consumption (ZEV), and an intelligent control and tariff system was introduced. The objectives were to influence the mobility behaviour of the residents, to optimise the self- consumption of the area, to reduce peak loads and to demonstrate possible new business models such offering system services (V2X Vehicle-to-everything). The project was realised by the project team of novatlantis GmbH (Dr. Anna Roschewitz), Smart Energy Engineering GmbH (Prof. Dr. David Zogg), Zurich University of Applied Sciences (Dr. Jörg Musiolik, Uroš Tomic, Pascal Vögeli) and ADEV Energiegenossenschaft (Andreas Appenzeller, Thomas Kramer). For the first time in Switzerland, an operation with two bidirectional electric vehicles in car sharing was implemented. The test facility was continuously monitored, analysed and optimised in terms of measurement and organisation. In particular, the "energy manager", i.e. the active control of the load management, was continuously developed further so that the load peaks could be better softened during operation. The Erlenmatt Ost site was a special case in various respects. On the one hand, a high overload of the area (up to 350 kW) faced a small control power of the electric vehicles (max. 20 kW). On the other hand, the vehicles were integrated in a car sharing model and the use was relatively low, as it is a low-mobility area. The advantage of car sharing was the plannability of use through the booking platform. A direct transfer of the effective results on site to other areas is not immediately possible due to these characteristics. However, it was shown for the first time in Switzerland that bidirectional charging is well possible under real conditions. The proof of concept is thus clearly given. Owing to the active control, the load peaks in the area could be significantly reduced. With only two electric vehicles, the potential of 20 kW was already largely utilised, even when both vehicles were present at the critical times in the morning and evening. This was the case due to the successful user intervention, where a tariff incentive led to the vehicles being on site at peak load times. Due to the small number of electric vehicles, extensive simulations were carried out and these results are very transferable to other areas. It can generally be said that a certain fleet size is necessary for V2X to be worthwhile. The simulations have shown that with a larger EV fleet in the Erlenmatt Ost area, the potential for reducing peak loads would be considerably greater than currently. Without regulation, the load peaks would almost double. With regulation, they can even be significantly reduced compared to the area without a fleet. According to simulations, a considerable contribution to peak load reduction is achieved from a fleet size of approx. 30 vehicles, as soon as enough bidirectional electric vehicles are on site and intelligently controlled. In general, it can be stated for areas that small fleets (15 electric vehicles) bring a large additional benefit for reducing peak loads, but do not have reliable availability during peak loads. As a result, the critical peak loads cannot be optimally reduced in every month. Medium-sized EV fleets (about 30 electric vehicles) already show better peak load reduction results and have much better availability. However, during some peak loads, more vehicles would be needed for an effective reduction. For large fleets (about 50 electric vehicles), the additional benefit for peak load reduction is small compared to the medium fleet. Not all electric vehicles from medium or large fleets are needed to achieve the targeted load reductions. Therefore, if electric vehicles are diffused throughout an area, it would be feasible to differentiate the use of the fleet for different energy services. For example, the aim could be to increase self-consumption with small fleets and to operate peak load reduction with medium-sized fleets. With large fleets, on the other hand, a subdivision and differentiated control of the fleet would be conceivable, so that some vehicles would be used for peak load reduction, while others would be available for regular services. It is recommended to continuously monitor the market and to already consider the possibilities of V2X when installing new charging boxes today. This will require intelligent controllers, which can be upgraded with this feature in the future. The behavioral intervention showed that by means of a two-part tariff and accompanied by an information campaign, it is in principle possible to influence the usage times of e-car sharing and thus to realize the breaking of load peaks in the evening. This finding can be transferred to other areas in Switzerland. As is usual with pilot projects, this applied research project was not yet economically viable for various reasons. This is primarily due to the currently high prices for bidirectional charging boxes. However, it was shown that significant costs can be saved with a regulated fleet, namely about CHF 14'000 per year with about 60 vehicles and current performance tariff. In the future, this business case will become more interesting if on the one hand the peak load tariff increases and on the other hand the costs for the charging boxes decreases. Furthermore, additional services with participation in the nationwide balancing energy market are conceivable. The project was met with great interest throughout Switzerland due to its practical implementation and forward-looking character. As part of the knowledge and technology transfer, numerous articles, events, site visits and videos were realized, which were aimed at a broad specialist audience. With this final report, the applied research project comes to an end, but not the implementation in the Erlenmatt Ost area. The ADEV energy cooperative continues to operate the e-car sharing for the residents and the energy optimization of the site and thus establishes itself as an innovative mobility provider.