Grid Integration of Electric Mobility

Electric mobility has been an integral part of the BMW product strategy since the introduction of the BMW i models i3 and i8 and the expansion of the model range by various plug-in-hybrid vehicles. Customer perspectives are changing worldwide in terms of future mobility and growing importance of sustainability. Therefore, BMW has identified electric mobility as one of the key factors for the future success of the company.

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Es gibt viele Gründe und Belege dafür, dass der Elektromobilität die Zukunft gehören wird. Die Experten der UBS-Bank erwarteten beispielsweise schon im August 2014, dass bis 2020 mit einer Energie-Revolution zu rechnen sei, die auch zu einem Umbruch im Verkehr führen wird. Die Kosten für Lithium-Ionen-Batterien werden sich demnach bis 2020 halbieren. Nach dem Eintritt von Tesla in den Markt stationärer Batterien sind allein im Jahr 2015 die Batteriekosten um 25 Prozent gesunken. Die Reichweite der E-Autos steigt stetig, die Kosten sinken, die Fahrzeuge werden so immer attraktiver und wettbewerbsfähiger. Insbesondere auch in Kombination mit dezentraler Solarenergie, deren Kosten ebenfalls drastisch sinken, werden sie in Zeiten von Diesel-Gate zu einem unverzichtbaren Baustein der weltweiten Energiewende.

Since the introduction of “New Energy Vehicles” (NEV) via the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) as a new vehicle type in 2009, several domestic car manufacturers started to offer products in that category (MIIT, 20091). Supported by restriction and subsidy policies, the sales of NEV started to increase rapidly, topping in 200,000 passenger NEV wholesale in 2015 (www.caam.com.cn, 2016). Electric Vehicles (EV) are set as key developing type of NEV in China, thus it is the focus of this paper.

Die Energiewende vorantreiben, eine emissionsfreie Zukunft ermöglichen – das ist das Ziel von The Mobility House. Durch neuartige Lade- und Energiespeicher- Lösungen verhelfen wir der Elektromobilität zum Durchbruch und reduzieren die Kosten von Elektrofahrzeugen. Unsere Technologien ermöglichen die Integration von Elektrofahrzeugen in das Stromnetz als aggregierter Schwarmspeicher fahrender Elektroautos (V2G) oder als stationäre Speicher aus Fahrzeugbatterien.

In the mobility sector, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) provide a promising solution to rising CO2 emissions and, in the long term, the dependence on oil. However, in the energy sector, conventionally charged BEVs provide an additional challenge as they potentially lead to higher energy consumption and a higher need for balancing energy supply and demand. In contrast, when using smart charging technologies, BEVs could become a valuable energy balancing tool in smart grids by using them as “controllable” energy consumer and energy storage. Until now, user-centered research on the acceptance of smart charging systems is rare (e.g., Pettersson, 2013; Schmalfuß et al., 2015). However, as smart charging concepts have an impact on a very essential aspect of the daily routine – mobility – a user-centered approach (Norman & Draper, 1986) when developing smart grid applications (e.g., smart charging systems) is highly recommended (e.g., Verbong, Beemsterboer & Sengers, 2013). Investigating expectations, experiences and preferences of potential users of a smart charging system and integrating the results in the developmental process, was one part of the project “Gesteuertes Laden V3.0” which was funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety. In this contribution, we summarize the main user studies and their results.

Die Stromversorgung für Elektromobilität ist mit einem Verbrauch von weniger als 2 TWh pro Million Fahrzeugen ist auch auf längere Sicht kein Mengenproblem, sondern lässt vor allem Leistungsengpässe auf der Verteilnetzebene erwarten. Daher ist es zunehmend wichtig, Elektrofahrzeuge als flexible Verbraucher mit erzeugungsgerechten Ladestrategien und ggf. auch als Spitzenleistungsspeicher (vehicle to grid) einzuplanen; so können sie zukünftig einen wesentlichen Beitrag für die verstärkte Nutzung und die Netzintegration erneuerbarer Energien leisten.

Der Beitrag behandelt sowohl die energiewirtschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen für Elektrofahrzeuge als auch die mobilitätsrelevanten Rahmenbedingungen für das Elektrizitätssystem. Daraus lässt sich ableiten, an welchen Stellen sich beide Systeme aufeinander zu entwickeln müssen und wie sie von einer stärkeren Kopplung profitieren können.

Scenarios on energy transition in transportation in Germany show that future renewable electricity needs will be substantial even when assuming high well-to-wheel efficiencies. On the supply side, integrating (fluctuating) renewable electricity into the electricity system poses its challenges. On the demand side, integrating certain electricity demand characteristics from transportation poses challenges of their own. This paper gives an overview over these challenges as well as the integration options specific to various electricity consumers in transportation.

Electric mobility has been an integral part of the BMW product strategy since the introduction of the BMW i models i3 and i8 and the expansion of the model variety by various plug-in-hybrid vehicles. Beside of changing insights of customers worldwide in terms of future mobility and growing importance of sustainability, all OEM are faced to huge challenges in fulfilling the CO2 emissions legislation in the main markets worldwide. For premium-OEMs as BMW this means an extra effort due to the wide model program also in the sportive and luxury segment. Therefore, BMW has identified the electric vehicle as a necessary approach for the future success of the company.

Der Energiemarkt wird sich grundlegend verändern und künftig zunehmend durch ein Zusammenspiel fluktuierender Erzeugungs- und dezentraler Speichereinheiten sowie traditionellen, konventionellen Erzeugern bestimmt. Diese Veränderungen erfordern eine weitere Flexibilisierung von Anlagen in Form von individualisierten Nachfrageprofilen, einer Synchronisierung der Volatilitäten und einer intelligenten Vernetzung der Komponenten im Rahmen eines Smart Grids. In diesem Kontext werden auch die Batterien von Elektrofahrzeugen weiter an Bedeutung gewinnen. Für die Steuerung der Stromflüsse bedarf es allerdings einer IKT-basierten Einbindung in das Smart Grid.

Das Konzept der Bundesregierung Deutschland für eine umweltschonende, zuverlässige und bezahlbare Energieversorgung definiert hohe Ziele für den Ausbau erneuerbarer Energieträger. Daher erlebt insbesondere die elektrische Energieversorgung aktuell einen fundamentalen Wandel. Immer mehr dezentrale, flexible Einheiten erzeugen Strom und sind dabei von fluktuierenden Faktoren wie der Sonneneinstrahlung oder dem Windaufkommen abhängig. Dadurch entstehen neben den bisherigen, durch schwankenden Stromverbrauch bedingten Fluktuationen zusätzliche kurzfristige Schwankungen im Stromnetz, die zur Erhaltung einer stabilen Netzführung ausgeglichen werden müssen. Wegen des Wegfalls konventioneller Kraftwerke, die bisher diesen Ausgleich vorgenommen haben, müssen hier neue Lösungen gefunden werden.

California’s principal energy agencies are currently establishing the policy and regulatory foundations for the widespread transformation of the transportation sector to one that is powered by decarbonized electricity. Executive orders and legislation established the basic frameworks needed to deploy vehicle technologies that serve the complementary goals to reduce transportation-related criteria air pollution in nonattainment air quality districts 80 % from current levels by 2030 and greenhouse gas emissions statewide 80 % below 1990 levels by 2050. In support of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and California Energy Commission (CEC), the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) develops utility policies in four broad program categories, consistent with milestones set forth in orders and law:

● Coordinating the buildout of infrastructure to charge 1 million ZEV by 2020;

● Encouraging vehicle adoption such that 1.5 million ZEVs are driven on roads by 2025;

● Designing rates and incentives for low carbon fuels to halve petroleum use by 2030; and

● Utilizing Vehicle-Grid Integration technologies to use transportation energy as a resource that facilitates a 50 % renewable electricity system by 2030.

The transition to sustainable energies does not only include renewable energy generation, but also efficient energy storage and a flexible operation of power consumers. Electric mobility offers great potential for such optimizations.

eMobility is the global key to an environmentally friendly transformation of mobility and, in Germany, it is part of the energy transition. The use of electric vehicles, particularly in combination with electricity from renewable energies, generates significantly less carbon dioxide. Thanks to their energy storage systems, electric vehicles will also be able to compensate for fluctuations in wind and solar power in a smart grid and thus support the development and market integration of these volatile energy sources. Germany, however, is trailing behind its stated political objectives in the field of eMobility, according to which the number of existing vehicles should have reached 100,000 by the end of 2014. The actual figure was 24,000.

As an introduction, we want to take a closer look at the enormous potential of the electric mobility of the future that will be fuelled by renewable energy using the example of a specific solar plant that has been in operation since 2008. Even though storage and charging management surely still are a big challenge, the comparison of power generation and demand shows that renewable mobility basically is possible. In this context, it is also interesting to reconsider well-known reservations that electric cars hardly ever can be charged by solar plants at daytime in most cases, only have a limited range and are also too expensive. The debate should finally focus primarily on all the cases that already now can be solved with electric mobility and the implementation of these cases should be started. In view of the ongoing technological progress, there will be further potentials very soon.

The charging interface between grid and electric vehicles is new. Energy and automotive industry have to co-operate for a successful introduction of e-mobility. There are plenty of challenges to provide a proper co-operation of these “two worlds”. From the view of the energy provider integration of e-mobility into smart grid is important, which includes effective dynamic load management and the use of the HV-Batteries in the vehicles to store and feedback energy. The user expects sufficient and reliable charging points to recharge his electric vehicle everywhere and at any time. Keys for an infrastructure accepted by users are easy to use and secure data transfer of personal data.

Why ISO 15118?

The market launch of electric mobility (eMobility) coincides with the megatrends energy transition and digitization. Therefore the launch takes place in a dynamically changing energy market and increasing automation of processes and digital networking systems. This transformation occurs on timescale of the energy industry very fast. But also for the information technology, the pace of innovation is very high. As a consequence of this IT infrastructure and applications should be designed modular and scalable, and future requirements have to be already anticipated. A further challenge is the need of cost efficiency, which arises for example in the conflict between IT security / safety and the resulting costs. The German Bundestag has adopted the draft law to increase the security of IT systems. It is expected that the strict requirements, which are already known in the field of energy grid control, has to be extended to the entire energy operational infrastructure. Concerning the possible development paths, economically viable intermediate milestones as well as the resulting scaling costs are important aspects. In order to be successful at the impending rollout and in order to be able to concentrate on the core business, the main decisions for a sustainable infrastructure should be made today.

The German energy transition (“Energiewende”) is one of the central tasks, to which politics and society have committed themselves. As part of the energy transition, the fluctuating renewable energies (RE) such as wind and solar in particular will be massively expanded and there will generally be a stronger electrification in almost all economic sectors – including the transportation sector – through the substitution of fossil energy. To accommodate high amounts of fluctuating RE within the energy system, innovative approaches to improve the balance of generation and demand must be developed in particular. Load management and the issue of utilising flexibility will play a key role. The pilot project “Flexible power-to-heat” – a joint project between EnBW and Netze BW – addresses these aspects and could also be an example for a grid friendly charging of electric vehicles.

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Thank you for your understanding.

Electric vehicles (EVs) have important roles not only as the sustainable mobility but also as the distributed energy storage in the smart grid. Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G), which enable the EV to supply power and energy for the grid, requires the bi-directional power flow control and the two-way communication with utilities.

In this research, innovative energy management strategies of multiple EVs simultaneously considering vehicle user convenience, realistic structure of communication and control handling the multiple EVs, and harmonization to the distribution and transmission grid. The proposed strategies are being validated by a unique power, control, communication hardware-in-the-loop-simulation (HILS) implementing communication and control of these strategies into a commercialized EV, an EV supply equipment (EVSE), and a power grid real-time simulator. Both dynamical behaviour of the distributed battery and inverter interface and its system-wide effect to the power grid is evaluated in a laboratory test bed.

The necessary extensive reconstruction of the grid infrastructure is a technical challenge. Its realization is caught in the field of tension between the economical and socio- political framework. Under the heading “Merit Order Netz-Ausbau 2030” (Merit Order Network-Expansion 2030 – MONA 2030), a comparison of measures and technologies for grid optimization is currently carried out, especially concerning the increased feed-in of renewable energies and the additional existence of new loads (such as electric vehicles) in the transmission and distribution grids.

The mass roll-out of electro-mobility, in conjunction with the increased production of electricity derived from renewable sources, is one of the major opportunities to reduce CO₂ over the next decade. The efficiency of electric engines is superior to that of combustion engines and the renewable energy sources used to power them are naturally CO₂-free. Additionally, the fact that electric cars use batteries takes care of the issue of energy storage, helping to overcome the problem of renewable sources only being available when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. The battery in the car, in combination with an energy management system that can monitor the availability of renewable energy, is a major opportunity.

This manuscript was not available on completion of this publication.

Thank you for your understanding.