Overview
The project addressed new topics of infrastructure for electromobility by taking an all-encompassing viewpoint and building upon the precursor project BALLADE – User-friendly Ubiquitous Charging Infrastructure for electromobility
The “BALLADE 2” project was divided into the following main points:
- Convergence e-vehicle/charging infrastructure
- E-charging strategies
- E-info services for travellers
- Interoperability and standardization
Funding
Results
Regarding the main topics of the project, the following results have been achieved:
Convergence e-vehicle/charging infrastructure
A comprehensive concept for the optimum integration of e-vehicles and e-charging infrastructure has been investigated and their functioning has been shown in a demonstrational set-up as well as in a thorough simulation. Trends in new standards developments in the field of vehicle-to-charge-station communication have been considered such as those related to ISO/IEC 15118.
E-charging strategies
Intelligent charging strategies will have a major impact on the costs expected for the roll-out of charging infrastructures and on renewable energy use. Charging strategies have been analysed in the project, and prototypically deployed in an expert system, which enable efficient establishment of infrastructure and increased utilization of renewable energy. Requirements have been intensively discussed and documented of the vehicle side (battery), the driver (comfort and safety), the utilities (net stability and investments into extensions), the energy distributors (production and distribution cost structures), and the environmental policy impacts (efficiency, conduction loss, charging loss, feasibility, synchronization of available power from renewable sources). The results of the analysis were incorporated into practical demonstrations including vehicle and phone app user interfaces.
E-info services for travellers
An additional task in the project was a research into concepts for information provision to e-vehicle drivers for an optimization of travelling and charging strategies. More precisely, such “strategies” are understood as the pre-trip and on-trip considerations which drivers attempt to make and follow in order to reach their target destination, given the peculiarities of their vehicles, and optionally to plan their return route. On this subject the project exceeded all expectations. An overall architecture for an information system has been defined which could be coordinated also with external operators such as TomTom and Wikitude, and positively validated for future operational deployment.
Interoperability and standardization
Departing from the BALLADE 1 overall concept, architecture, and its implementation a modularization and extension has been performed with the orientation on standardization, interoperability, bridging with third party systems, and on usability. Mainly the aim was on enabling easy to use electromobility (also when provided by different operators).
OUTREACH
In the frame of the project also theoretical foundations have been elaborated in preparation of market intelligence studies. This included the development of an interactive market map for the electromobility sector, which was utilized for the analysis and research of the project itself. The results of the project were impressively demonstrated in a show case at the ITS World Congress in October 2012.