Last February, a new edition of the eMobility Expo World Congress took place in Valencia. The eMobility World Congress 2024 is an international conference that provides the most relevant and influential platform for the future of mobility, through sustainability and technology. From 13 to 15 February the eMobility Expo World Congress ended with more than 5,794 mobility professionals from 16 countries, consolidating the success of an event that has become a benchmark for the mobility sector worldwide. Along with industry professionals, 344 world experts participated in the congress and 179 international companies, such as Ford, Toyota, Iberdrola, Cepsa, Balearia, Air Nostrum, Power Electronics, BP, and Ficosa, among others, presented their latest innovations in sustainable mobility during the event.
Alongside discussions on ground-based transportation, the event also addressed challenges and opportunities in air mobility, highlighting the pivotal role of aviation in the evolving mobility landscape.
As part of this dynamic event, Mattia Mazzeschi on behalf of CIDAUT, participated as moderator of the session titled “Megatrends in Air Mobility”. The session delved into the promising future of air mobility, exploring significant milestones, emerging business opportunities, and technological advancements. In between the climate crisis and evolving societal sensitivities, discussions centered on the transformative impact of mobility-as-a-service, intermodal transportation, and the emergence of new technologies driving innovation in the aerospace sector. At the core of the dialogue were the megatrends shaping the future of air mobility and the identification of emerging markets poised for growth. Participants exchanged insights on the critical drivers of change in the aeronautic sector, emphasizing the need for collaborative efforts to navigate challenges and capitalize on opportunities in the evolving landscape.
In parallel and within the framework of eMobility, the H2 Hydrogen World Congress took place. This congress presented a comprehensive overview of the hydrogen industry, offering both plenary and parallel sessions. Attendees had the opportunity to delve into specific areas of interest or explore the entire value chain of the industry, spanning from major corporations to cutting-edge scientific research.
On behalf of CIDAUT, Henar Olmedo participated in the session that took place on the 15th entitled: “The hydrogen colours (white, green, gray…): the generation is the key”. This roundtable explored the diverse spectrum of hydrogen production, characterized by colours such as white, green, emphasizing that the method of generation is pivotal. It delved into how each colour represents a different production technique and its environmental implications. The session was shared with other speakers from ITE, the University of Barcelona and Solar Outdoor Media & Klear Energy.
Fundación CIDAUT will attend JEC World 2024 from 5th to 7th March as a member of the Osiris Network (Gaiker, Aimplas, Aitex and Fundación CIDAUT). Osiris Network will participate as an exhibitor in #PabellónEspañaV – Hall 6 H108, organised by AEMAC – Spanish Association of Composite Materials.
At the stand of Osiris Network, representatives of the four technology centres (Gaiker, Aimplas, Aitex and Fundación Cidaut) will exhibit and will introduce the developments in the field of recycling of composite plastic materials and solutions for the revaluation of composite materials that have been carried out in the three years of the project, with the aim of showing the progress and research and transferring these solutions to interested industrial companies.
In addition, Fundación CIDAUTA will attend as coordinator of the ESTELLA European project. The aim of ESTELLA is to obtain recyclable thermostable biocomposites from new materials, such as recyclable thermostable resins and natural fibres. The recyclability of these biocomposites will be investigated through chemical, mechanical and biological recycling processes that can be used to produce new materials from composite waste. ESTELLA has reached the halfway point of its duration and the JEC is therefore a great opportunity to learn about the project’s objectives and its main advances.
Everyone knows that last-mile logistics negatively affects cities’ air quality. Its relevance in the total greenhouse gas emissions is driving logistics operators to electrify their fleets. Whereas in the past, the customers valued the speed of the service more highly, there is now a greater concern for sustainability and the environment when making an online purchase. In parallel, making urban logistics more sustainable requires the promotion of the public administration at this point, for economic reasons.
In the framework of EU Urbane project, CIDAUT is studying how much the air quality in Valladolid would improve if urban delivery services were electrified. As part of the study, a number of specialised prototype vehicles, designed and developed by IFEVS, will be put into circulation. As a special feature, these vehicles are partially powered by photovoltaic energy. Although the brand has several models, only the van and cargo bike will be put into circulation in Valladolid.
The study is focused on Boecillo Technological Park and the central area of Valladolid, which has unique characteristics. Specifically, these are an important historical centre, with a lot of distribution demand by hotels, restaurants and cafes, and a lot of pedestrians. CIDAUT has reached an agreement with the Spanish postal service so that they make deliveries of letters and parcels on the IFEVS vehicles. Their routes are being monitored; both with the vehicles they normally use and soon with the prototype vehicles, in order to establish a comparative of how much the city’s air quality would improve if electric vehicles were used.
As mentioned above, this study is supported by EU Urbane project, funding from Horizon Europe under Grant Agreement nº 101069782.
Figure 1. Positive impacts of smart charging technologies, by Waldron et al. (2019).
In the latest years, a growing number of cities are leveraging on mobility-related interventions at urban and peri-urban scale to enhance many aspects of citizens’ life such as sustainability, inclusiveness, social cohesion, or public health. In PROBONO, mobility at Living Lab scale is envisioned as a key enabler of GBNs, thanks to the implementation of smart charging-related functionalities in the local energy network.
It is widely known that the electrification of transport is considered a major driver of the green transition. But at the same time it is also clear that the deployment of vast amounts of EVs in our neighborhoods will have a massive impact on the current electricity systems, mainly in terms of installed capacity and power handling. This is due to the fact that users’ EV charging patterns may lead to intense peaks in power demand, which will require extra investments in infrastructure to update electric networks, provided that EV charging infrastructure continue to be based on regular, unidirectional charging points.
Smart charging, enabled by bi-directional chargers can be the key to avoid this kind of problems. By using bi-directional chargers, power can be transferred either from the grid to the EVs, or the other way around. The main objective of smart charging is to manage EV charging demands intelligently, so that it doesn’t destabilize the overall electric network. For this purpose, two main strategies are put in place: load balancing (shifting EV charging demand to off-peak hours), and peak shaving (use energy stored in EV to reduce the intensity of peak demand).
Through smart charging, EVs with bidirectional charging capability can be used as multi-purpose energy banks able to take out or feed energy into the electricity grid, for various applications:
Vehicle-to-Load (V2L): the EV battery is employed to feed any regular appliances or other EVs by transferring power through a generic power plug, no matter the location of the EV and the load. It does not need the installation of a bi-directional charger to operate, and it can be used to power critical loads during an outage, or to power appliances when on the road.
Vehicle-to-Home (V2H): vehicle-to-home consists on extracting energy from an EV battery, to power a home during a certain time period, instead of being fed by the electricity grid. One of most interesting applications of this technology is power outage prevention.
Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G): vehicle-to-grid takes place when a portion of the EV battery energy is introduced into the electricity grid, usually in exchange for an incentive for the EV owner. V2G charging can help to minimize the impact on the power generation systems during peak demands, hence increasing the grid flexibility, resilience and stability.
In practice, the management of EVs charging can be integrated in the general GBN energy management system to maximize energy savings. To this end, the system can prioritise the charge of the vehicles attending to users’ needs, as well as energy availability considering a high portion of the energy being produced by renewable sources. It also allows optimizing the operating cost of the network, and avoiding grid congestions at GBN scale. At the same time, smart charging can generate incomes to GBN inhabitants, mainly through V2G energy transfer, therefore lowering the ownership costs of EVs.
The research leading to these results has received funding from Horizon 2020 Green Deal under Grant Agreement 101037075
CIDAUT continues with the dissemination of the interesting opportunities offered by the use of hydrogen technologies in different fields such as aerospace, military land vehicles or in biogas generation facilities.
The 16th International Bioenergy Congress was held in Valladolid on October 3 and 4 together with the Renewable Gas Exhibition, organized by AVEBIOM. Within this congress CIDAUT had the opportunity to present the Colhibri project. This project, approved in the first call for projects PERTE ERHA incentive program 4 of the IDAE, is a research for the development of new systems for the production of electrical and thermal energy based on H2 technologies that constitute a more efficient and cleaner alternative to the current cogenerations based on biogas combustion in combustion engines (RICE), as well as achieving an advantageous solution both in investment costs and operating costs.
On November 7, MFM Academy organized an event at the Getafe Market space entitled “Hydrogen in the aerospace sector”. José Ignacio Domínguez, project manager of the Energy area of CIDAUT, on behalf of AeH2, participated in the table dedicated to the use of hydrogen in mobility, discussing with the rest of the speakers on the current situation and prospects for the use of H2 in mobility in Spain, as well as focusing on the key points to work on to promote the introduction of the use of this decarbonizing energy vector in the transport sector.
Regarding the use of technologies in the Defense sector, CIDAUT had the opportunity to participate in the X National Congress of R&D in Defense and Security (DESEi+d 2023), which took place in the Marine Infantry School “General Albacete y Fuster” (EIMGAF), located in Cartagena, during the 14th, 15th and 16th of November 2023. During the presentation, the working approach of the PCVEMI project was presented, which focuses on the development of a propulsion system based on a national fuel cell for use in military land vehicle platforms.
