At the beginning of June I attended the “Utrecht Energized” extravaganza at the Jaarbeurs Convention Centre in the heart of Utrecht in the Netherlands. According to Renault’s press release about the event:
Renault Group, MyWheels and We Drive Solar, together with the Municipality of Utrecht, announce the go-live of Europe’s first large‑scale Vehicle‑to‑Grid (V2G) car‑sharing service: Utrecht energized. The initiative supports a more sustainable, efficient energy system in a city where 35 % of rooftops are already fitted with solar panels. Thanks to the V2G technology, electric vehicles can store energy and feed it back to the local grid during peak periods, so renewable power remains available around the clock. By combining a shared‑mobility service with advanced technology, the project keeps the local grid in balance while accelerating the transition to sustainable urban transport.
Here’s Renault Nederland’s brief promotional video:
More about all that in due course, but first of all please note these paragraphs from the press release:
Today we are finally able to bring you exciting news of a large vehicle-to-grid installation in the Netherlands, with some unusual twists apart from the sheer number of charging stations.
In a thankfully English language article in PlaceTech it was reported earlier this week that:
Edge has delivered an office building for Triodos Bank in the Netherlands engineered to be sustainable inside and out with the latest circular construction principles designed throughout. The 135,000 sq ft office in Driebergen-Zeist, Netherlands was built with the intention to harmonise with the surrounding fauna and flora, on a construction level and beyond.
Please bear in mind that the article is referring to EDGE Technologies which is part of Dutch developer OVG Real Estate, and not the U2 guitarist!
After further description of the office building itself the article eventually gets to the part of the project of most interest to us. The solar PV covered car park:
The extensive use of renewable energy, reflected in over 3,000 m² of solar panels, as well as heat and cold storage, contributes to the energy neutrality of the building. The project encompasses ‘smart charging’ electric cars from solar energy and ‘Vehicle2grid’ technology. Vehicle2grid means that the cars cannot only be charged with solar energy but also discharged, which is called bi-directional charging. The cars become an active part of a ‘smart net’, which includes such benefits as being able to store solar energy.
The PlaceTech article doesn’t go into any more detail than that but we certainly intend to, not least because the aerial view of the solar PV canopy reveals a number of electric vehicle charging stations that look identical to the one we have installed in our “wall to wall” V2G “living lab”:
Taking a look at the new Triodos car park from ground level it becomes apparent that a large array of AC V2G capable charging stations are currently being installed, both under and around the solar PV canopy:
To find out more about what’s going on we’ve had to resort to Google Translate. According to a Dutch language article on the Triodos Bank web site from earlier this year:
The largest bidirectional charging plaza in the world is under construction at the new office building of Triodos Bank next to Driebergen-Zeist station. From this Autumn, 120 smart chargers will be able to store solar energy in the batteries of shared electric cars.
Triodos Bank have realised the project in close collaboration with developer EDGE Technologies and We Drive Solar. The bidirectional chargers are directly connected to 3,253 m² of solar panels and have a triple function. Electric cars can charge here. Cars whose battery is full enough can also supply power, so that the energy can be used in the office building or be fed back into the electricity grid.
Part of the plan is that Triodos Bank will replace its pool cars with 100% electric cars, so that they become part of the bidirectional charging ecosystem. Triodos Bank will investigate how, in addition to Triodos Bank employees, the residents of Zeist and the surrounding area can also use its shared electric cars. According to Triodos Bank director Matthijs Bierman “The plan fits in with our new ambitions in the field of sustainable mobility. We want to make car sharing as sustainable and attractive as possible. Not only for our employees, but also for the local community.”
Now 120 AC V2G charging stations sounds amazing, but where are 120 or more AC V2G capable electric cars going to come from? I can help answer that question, since I attended the launch of the We Drive Solar bi-directional ecosystem in Utrecht earlier this year. According to Renault:
A fleet of fifteen Zoe vehicles with vehicle-to-grid charging will be introduced in Europe over the course of 2019 to develop our future offerings in reversible charging and lay the groundwork for the future standards —with our partners’ help. These pilot schemes will begin today in Utrecht (the Netherlands) in an ecosystem developed by We Drive Solar and on Porto Santo Island (in the archipelago of Madeira, Portugal) with Empresa de Electricidade da Madeira, an energy supplier. Following these, more pilot schemes will be introduced in France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark.
So that explains 15 prototype AC V2G capable Renault ZOE’s across Europe in 2019, but that’s a lot less than 120 in the Triodos car park! As far as I am aware Renault have not announced when V2G enabled ZOEs will go into production, but when ultimately they do Triodos Bank will be ready! In the meantime I’m sure that plenty of “smart charging” will be going on in Driebergen-Zeist and across the Netherlands
All in all the project sounds a lot like a combination of our “Camelford Electric Car Club” and “Static and Mobile Distributed Energy Storage” projects, albeit on a much grander scale! That probably explains this remark by Robin Berg of We Drive Solar to Bobby Llewellyn at the recent Fully Charged LIVE event at Silverstone in the summer?
If you want to discover more about the We Drive Solar bi-directional ecosystem then please feel free to attend this webinar on September 23rd at 13:00 British Summer Time:
Groupe Renault, the European leader in electric vehicles, is beginning the first large-scale pilot schemes in reversible electric charging. Our alternating-current technology has the particularity of placing the reversible charger inside vehicles, so it just requires a simple, inexpensive adaptation of the existing charging terminals.
A fleet of fifteen Zoe vehicles with vehicle-to-grid charging will be introduced in Europe over the course of 2019 to develop our future offerings in reversible charging and lay the groundwork for the future standards —with our partners’ help. These pilot schemes will begin today in Utrecht (the Netherlands) in an ecosystem developed by We Drive Solar and on Porto Santo Island (in the archipelago of Madeira, Portugal) with Empresa de Electricidade da Madeira, an energy supplier. Following these, more pilot schemes will be introduced in France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark.
It looks like we’ll have to (metaphorically of course) twist someone’s arm at Renault to let us try one or more of their modified Zoes with AC V2G capability! I was at the launch in Utrecht today and spoke to a variety of representatives from Renault Netherlands and Renault France, who by and large seemed amenable to the idea of a suitably funded UK pilot project. Renault’s press release was of course accompanied by a variety of images. However I took lots of pictures of my own, and a fair few videos too. Here’s the three Zoes that were lined up in Utrecht today:
and here’s King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands driving away in one of them, accompanied by Robin Berg of We Drive Solar:
Here too is a video recording of some of the excellent entertainment at the event, provided by the Hillsback Brassband:
Invigorated by the brilliant brass section here’s one of the press release infographics that I couldn’t snap for myself. Renault’s visualisation of vehicle-to-grid technology in action:
2019 – Recharge bidirectionnelle
Charging during the day on the left. Discharging during the night on the right. Much like our very own V2G UK banner above! Renault’s press release continues:
Vehicle-to-grid charging — also called reversible charging — modulates the charging and discharging of electric-vehicle batteries in accordance with users’ needs and the grid’s supply of available electricity. Charging reaches its maximum level when the electricity supply exceeds demand, notably during peaks in production of renewable energy. But vehicles are also capable of injecting electricity into the grid during peaks in consumption. Electric vehicles can therefore serve units of temporary energy storage and become key drivers in the development of renewable energy. In this way, the electricity grid optimizes the supply of local renewable energy and reduces infrastructure costs. At the same time, customers enjoy greener, more economical consumption of electricity and are financially rewarded for serving the electricity grid.
Reversible charging will be piloted in several projects (electric ecosystems or mobility services) through seven countries and alongside various partners to lay the groundwork for Groupe Renault’s future offering. The aim is twofold: to measure large-scale feasibility and potential gains. In particular, these pilot schemes will help us:
Underline the technical and economic advantages of an onboard solution in electric vehicles
Demonstrate—in concrete terms—the value of services provided for the local and national electricity grid, such as encouraging consumption of solar and wind energy, checking the grid’s frequency or tension, and reducing infrastructure costs
Work on the regulatory frameworks of a mobile energy-storage scheme, detecting any pitfalls in it and offering concrete solutions
Establish common standards, the basic requirement for an industrial-scale roll-out.
I now have a few more videos of the event to go away and edit, but whilst those are being prepared here’s one that Renault provided earlier, illustrating both “Smart charging” and “Bidirectional smart charging”:
I had the pleasure of meeting Robin Berg in Utrecht last summer at the launch of the LomboXnet solar PV powered bi-directional vehicle to grid system. Here is a video of Robin’s recent presentation at TEDx Utrecht:
Robin says many interesting and enlightening things, but for the moment please consider this one:
Tomorrow your car will run electric. The day after it will power your house. It will be 100% renewable, it will be 100% clean, and it will be the end of coal, oil and gas.
Earlier this week I attended a vehicle-to-grid workshop organised by Nissan Europe. This one was held in Utrecht in The Netherlands, where I discovered that the workshop coincided with the announcement of a new partnership between the City of Utrecht and a number of Dutch companies to ultimately deliver 120 “smart charging stations” across Utrecht. There’ll be more from me on the workshop itself in due course, but for now let’s take a close look at the world’s first publicly available solar powered V2G capable AC electric vehicle charging station:
The charging station itself is a GE DuraStation with added bi-directional capability. Sadly my wish of a few weeks ago has not yet come true, and the Tesla model S you can see in the foreground is still only capable of being charged by the DuraStation, which is IEC 61851/62196 mode 3 compliant. However the BYD e6 visible in the background IS able to discharge its batteries back to the local distribution grid.
This particular charger is situated outside the offices of LomboXnet, and hence integrated with the CHAdeMO compliant V2G system we reported on back in March, which stores the excess energy generated by the Solar PV installation at a nearby primary school. Here’s another angle on the event, showing Councillor Lot van Hooijdonk shortly after she cut the ribbon to officially open the charging station:
Another part of my wish from last month has also yet to come true. In Utrecht as in the United Kingdom, and despite the red carpet, whether you own an electric vehicle manufactured by Nissan, BYD or Tesla, and whether it prefers to be charged via CHAdeMO, IEC 62196 or a Supercharger, you still won’t get paid for allowing your battery pack to be used to provide an extremely useful service to the local distribution grid. However, perhaps mighty oaks from little acorns do eventually grow?
Whilst we wait to discover if/when/how that happens, here’s the video that Robin Berg of LomboXnet showed the attendees of the 3rd Nissan V2G workshop:
