Overview
The project me² represents a new market place for urban actors in which a local community of electric vehicle (EV) users and local smart meter (SM) owners are brought together through means of a local urban online community. The combination of these technologies in a community allows to integrate mobility with electricity, to balance the grid, to reduce electricity costs, and to enable a feeling of local belonging. me2 enables urban demand-side management, i.e. aims to modify consumer demand for energy such as using less energy during peak hours in an urban community. The project applies the technical and academic state of the art regarding smart grids, electric mobility, business models and policy incentives to the development of an innovative service concept, which is validated and optimized in two practical pilots and demonstrations in urban communities in Amsterdam and Lisbon.
The project me² represents an integrated perspective on urban mobility and electricity with the following overall objective:
“Develop and verify an urban market place that combines e-mobility-demand side management technology with smart meter automation options within an innovative business model. The project includes operational methods to encourage usage, to optimize resources, to balance both the fluctuating renewable electricity generation and the urban local grid. It further sets these operational measures within the larger regulatory contexts to derive effective policy implications."
The methodology includes:
- Consumer analysis
- Simulations of charging data
- Prediction algorithms
- Gamification elements
Funding
Results
Project outputs are as follows:
- A tested, validated and operational Smart City Aggregator platform
- Pilots in two different settings, i.e. in a city with high degree of EV adoption (Amsterdam) and in a city with a lower degree of EV adoption (Lisbon), using an open-community (in Amsterdam) and closed-community (in Lisbon)
- Increased understanding and integration of e-mobility and electricity behavior, developing mechanisms to influence these behaviors using gamification elements based on smart algorithms, on an individual and community level, building on triggers like social comparison, measured self and social recognition in two different cultural settings
- More balanced local grids, defined as a 10% smoothened load curve through for instance gamified demand shift controlled by balancing algorithms
- Lowered average energy costs for consumers, defined as 10% lower household energy costs, for instance as a result of enabling smarter, more economical energy usage patterns
- A policy recommendation set for local and national agencies
- A viable business model, including a positive business case and an enticing value proposition