30. April 2012
The purpose of the EDISON WP3 workpackage was the development of a technical solution for intelligent system integration of distributed electric vehicles (EVs) plugged into an electric grid, in private homes or at charging stations in company and public parking lots.
The main challenge were the development of a suitable aggregation technology for low-cost, efficient, plug-and-play integration of small-scale distributed energy resources (here EVs) into the power system. The technical solution was expected to benefit from the virtual power plant (VPP) technology that is being developed for microCHPs, as well as from ongoing demand-response (DR) activities that aim at standardizing interactions to shape power production and consumption.
The key issue is how to maintain security of supply in an electric grid that incorporates a high percentage of green, but fluctuating wind energy and also has a significant number of mobile EVs, which represent both a challenge and huge storage/regulation potential. Both central and distributed control with grid DSO/TSO and market integration methods were investigated, which are also being studied as part of EcoGrid. For EV communication, the objective was to define a solution that gives the user a choice of aggregator and degree of grid-support services in order to analyze and enable a range of vehicle-to-grid optimization plans.
The overall focus was on designing and prototyping a secure server solution to support the functioning of a wide-area intelligent system spanning geographical distance and various classes of intelligent devices potentially generating huge amounts of real-time data flows. While the initial prototyping was tested and benchmarked in the Consortium laboratories, the goal was to facilitate the Bornholm island pilot and help in the assessment of full-scale Danish national plans in this space.
The key participants in EDISON WP3 were DTU
Centre for Electric Technology and
Informatics, and
IBM Denmark and Research – Zurich.
As part of the WP3 Special PhD Study, we appreciate the contributions of
Peter Bach Andersen,
Francesco Marra, and
Anders Bro Pedersen.
Essential interactions with WP2, WP4, WP5, and WP6 are also acknowledged.
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Peter Bach Andersen. The PhD study of the student is focused on three main research points: 1. State-of-the-art ICT in distributed production. 2. Distributed energy resource aggregation - operation and optimization. 3. Distributed energy resource market integration. The EDISON emphasis on EV integration in general, and the ICT related topics addressed by WP3 in particular, are very well aligned with the focus areas above and has proven a good fit with the academic goals of the candidate. He has given countless presentations, including at the universities of DTU and Delaware and in Palo Alto, USA. He contributed or authored at least 8 Edison related papers, and a chapter of an upcoming Wiley book on smart grids, and supervised almost a dozen Edison related student projects.
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Francesco Marra. The PhD project “Electric Vehicles into the Power System with High Wind Power Penetration – the Charge/Discharge Infrastructure” has as goal the development of technical solutions for an effective bidirectional power flow of EVs with the electricity grid, in order to mitigate the fluctuations by renewable power sources. The project is anchored to the Edison WP3 activity since it develops an EV test bed made of a real EV battery, a charging and V2G unit, for testing the aggregation technology developed in WP3. The project analyses all EV components involved in the bi-directional power exchange between the grid and the EV, focusing on their characteristics and optimal utilization aspects. The flexibility offered by an EV, in terms of intelligent interaction with the grid, is investigated through real tests where the EV setup responds to control requests generated by the Edison Virtual Power Plant. The candidate has already published 8 Edison related conference papers and a journal paper.
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Anders Bro Pedersen. PhD project ”EV Integration in a real-time market”. Deals with the ICT concerns in aggregated EV charging- and ancillary service participation in the suggested “real-time” markets of the future power systems. The main research objectives for the project relates to: 1. State-of-the-art in communication media and protocols for EV connectivity. 2. Aggregation of electric vehicles – first from the perspective of (complete) centralized control, then later looking into indirect control through price signalling. 3. Integration of electric vehicles into existing markets, as well as the proposed “real-time” markets. Though the larger part of the PhD project will be in relation to the EcoGrid EU project, there are many parallels that can be drawn between this and EDISON, as well as lessons and experiences that can be carried forward. One supervised project has already looked into which elements of latest EDISON developed Virtual Power Plant (VPP) that can be applied in the individual EV. The candidate has already published 3 papers and supervised 5 Edison related student projects.
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