The batteries of electric cars not in use might get used as energy storage to stabilise energy supply from alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power
PAYMENT MODELS “We are also running a project look- ing at options for charging at dwell- ings with shared occupancy, such as blocks of flats. There are different models for sharing the cost. At the moment it seems that the most suc- cessful way is to apply a flat charge to all the parking spaces in an area, or to all spaces with charging facili- ties. The electricity itself is so inex- pensive that it is hardly worth the cost for metering the energy and identifying the user. “Another aspect is that we may
charging when capacity was nearing its peak, allowing all of the cars to be charged through the night without overloading the system. This can be used either on a permanent basis, or as a temporary solution until the network can be reinforced. The com- pany now monitors its network for the growth of potential clusters.
CUT THE PEAKS “There is enough energy to run the entire vehicle fleet on electric- ity. The problem is one of output. If everyone charges their vehicle at the same time, there will likely be a bottleneck situation,” says Stefan Pettersson, associate professor and research manager for electromobil- ity at Viktoria Swedish ICT research institute in Gothenburg. “There may be problems on a
household level, if you charge your vehicle and run the washing machine at the same time; there may local be problems at the substation if the whole neighbourhood try to charge their vehicles at the same time; or three may be major infrastructure problems if the whole nation arrives home from work and start to charge simultaneously. “The priority in any demand man- agement system is to cut the peaks.
The peaks drive the costs. One obvi- ous solution is to stagger charging over time, for instance throughout the night. At the moment we are running a research project aimed at finding out whether this will be acceptable to users. I suspect that to some users, it will be very important to have their vehicle fully charged and ready to go in the shortest pos- sible time. Others will want to charge at the lowest tariff available. Still others will prefer to charge when green energy is available. By asking the users about their preferences, I think we will be able to find a way to spread charging over time.”
see car ownership come down in the future. Owning a car seems less important to young people of today than for previous generations, with fewer of them learning to drive. The high purchase price of electric vehi- cles, combined with another social trend, the sharing economy, may result in a drop of the overall num- ber of vehicles purchased. This will have knock-on effects on the need for infrastructure.”
INFRASTRUCTURE IS KEY “I have worked with this for about seven years. When we started work- ing with plug-in hybrids at Volvo, we naïvely thought that all we had to do was to replace the driveline in the car. As far as the car goes, that
The charging infrastructure is key to the development of the electric vehicle market 31
Environment and Health in Transport
EV INFRASTRUCTURE
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