On 24th October 2011, Cidaut started one exciting jorney on board a Nissan Leaf. Since that day, the vehicle has been used as a laboratory for understanding the users’s acceptance, the influence of the weather and the driving style on the battery behaviour, the regenerative braking efficiency and so many other issues that have allowed our sustaineble movility and intelligent transport department to fix important knowledge to build many.
All the vehicle movements have been tracked to understand the influence of driving profiles, roads orography, weather conditions, battery temperature and vehicle payload on energy consumption. Also the charging processes have been monitored to evaluated the influence of low charging vs fast charging, battery temperature and voltage and current evolution along the charging.
Braking system has been instrumented to understand the influence of driving style and battery state of charge on regenerative braking working. Noise measurements in the interior and exterior of the vehicle have been performed and on board thermal analysis has allowed to understand some charateristics of the HVAC system.
The vehicle has been used by more than 200 drivers that have completed surveys and have participated in interviews to better understand the initial users’ acceptance to the electric vehicle use. This information has been valuable for Cidaut in order to advance in the evolution of several projects related not only with the electric vehicle, but also with the connected one.
Probono Project has been approved for funding by the European Commission in the Frame of Green Deal. Probono brings together 47 partners all around Europe to develop innovative energy efficient buildings in connected suitable green neighbourghoods.
To demonstrate the results achieved through the project two large scale demonstrators, Madrid and Dublin, and four living labs, Brussels, Porto, Aarhus and Prague, have been proposed across Europe. Cidaut will contribute with mobility, connectivity and integration of renewable energies in Dublin and Madrid.
The large scale demonstrators will focus on new buildings, retrofitting and green districts development, energy optimization at district level, integration in the grid and electromobilty. The project will provide support at city level and will interact with citizens looking for solutions to be reproduced in follower cities.
The living labs will focus on smaller scale business driven renovation or construction projects with clear definition of value proposition and also looking for solutions to be integrated in follower cities.
The project will start on Autumn and will last for 60 months.
The finalization of RefreeDrive Project, led by Cidaut, has confirmed that it is possible to manufacture electric motors not only free of rare earths but also avoiding the use of critical materials coming from outside the European borders. The challenge was really ambitious, because the performance objective of the motors was to overcome the figures of a well-known American manufacturer. The ambition was also related to the number of motors to be developed because two technologies have been considered (induction motor and synchronous reluctance motor), two power levels (75kW and 200kW) and two manufacturing processes for each of the technologies.
The eight motors manufactured in the project have been tested stand-alone in a motor test bench to confirm the performance. Two of the solutions have been integrated with the power electronics and the cooling system and have been tested in a specific test bench. And finally, the pure reluctance motor, the power electronics and the rest of auxiliary systems have been integrated into a vehicle to perform acceleration, consumption, dynamic, and range tests.
This development has been made in the frame of the European Project ReFreeDrive, a three years European Project that has recently reached his end. The research leading to this result has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme under Grant Agreement nº 770143.
High strength steel tubular frames are a cost effective solution for urban electric vehicles. On one hand the high mechanical characteristics of HSS together with advanced design methodologies makes possible to create an almost non-deformable cabin to guarantee passengers’ and battery’s safety, on the other hand, their predictable behavior and high elongation allow to improve the energy absorption of the collapsible zones.
But one of the challenges of the high strength structures when they are highly demanded is the welding process. In this case the welding process has been optimized to nearly obtain the same mechanical properties of the base material, mainly DP800 and DP1000. But the development has gone one step forward, because Cidaut has developed a methodology to determine the effect of the welding process in the fatigue life of the joints in the vehicle structure.
The methodology is based in the use of finite elements simulations and takes into account not only the longitudinal geometry of the beams, but also the section of the beam and the influence of the welding process. The methodology has been validated through the testing of specimens at laboratory scale, and nowadays is been validated in a full vehicle structure test.
The fatigue loads have been determined thanks to the use of a multiboby analysis, where the everyday manoeuvers have been modelled (curves, braking, small potholes, braking in turn, acceleration,…) and the forces in the four corners of the vehicle have been determined to be used in both the finite element simulation and the validation test.
This development has been made in the frame of the European Project Avangard, a three years European Project that has recently reached his midterm. The research leading to this result has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme under Grant Agreement nº 869986.
CIDAUT, has officially joined BEPA, the Batteries European Partnership Association (BEPA), confirming its commitment to improve the competitiveness of the European battery industry
Counting more than 160 members, BEPA is a leading association dedicated to create a competitive, sustainable and circular European industrial battery value chain for stationary applications and e-mobility.
The BEPA members will work together to prepare Europe to manufacture and commercialise by 2030 the next-generation battery technologies that will enable the rollout of the zero-emission mobility and renewable energy storage.
BEPA represents the private side association of the BATT4EU Partnerships the co-programmed partnership on batteries launched by the European Commission under Horizon Europe. The partnership will mobilise more 925 million euros, to boost European research and innovation in the battery sector.
CIDAUT will contribute to BEPA goals, by bringing in its expertise in the research and development of passive safety in the automotive industry and strong simulation capabilities to develop predictable models for crash optimization of batteries for electromobility.
CIDAUT Foundation has become one of the headquarters of an OFICINA ACELERA PYME (OAP) chosen by Red.es (a public corporate entity belonging to the Ministry of Energy, Tourism and the Digital Agenda –MINETAD-) which depends on the Secretary of State for Information Society and Digital Agenda -SESIAD-) with the aim of promoting the adoption of digital technologies by SMEs, self-employers and entrepreneurs (OAP users) to help their digital transformation, and, with it, the evolution of the economy and society towards a digital environment.
This advanced service is materialized both a physical and virtual space specifically oriented to carrying out support and raising awareness tasks to OAP users about the advantages and innovative methodologies to optimize their businesses operating through the incorporation of the Technologies of the Information and Communications (ICT) in their processes and boosting the data economy and digital content. In this way, the demand for innovative technologies that contribute to improving their productivity will be highly favored.
The ultimate goal is to move towards a new models of economic growth that makes it possible: the creation of new high quality employments, the maintenance of the current businesses, and the development of new companies/businesses from local entrepreneurs. In the same way, it’s also an objective to encourage women’s digital fluency (understood as the good use and utilization of the technology to acquire more knowledge, be more effective and be better connected in the day-to-day tasks) and to allow a faster reduction of the existing gender gap in companies of our country. These actions cover a large number of technological solutions aim at helping OAP users to advance in their digital transformation processes. Specific attention will be given to: productivity solutions (ERP); e-commerce solutions; customer management solutions (CRM); actions to modernize the business IT infrastructure; cybersecurity solutions; productivity and teleworking solutions; resources to promote digital learning and training; new digital environments solutions; and, updated information on existing financing instruments on the local, regional and national maps for actions in digitization and industry 4.0.
This action will remain in force until April 2023. It´s co-financed by Red.es (within the Acelera Pyme Program to promote the adoption of technologies by the Spanish companies -including newly created ones-, especially Small and Medium-sized Companies –SMEs-, self-employers and entrepreneurs) and by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) within the framework of Spain’s Multiregional Operational Program FEDER 2014-2020 (POPE) under the slogan “A way to make Europe“.
March 2021 saw the end of ReFreeDrive project. In the last months of the project all the efforts have been devoted to finishing the manufacturing of the induction and synchronous reluctance motors for both power ranges (75kW and 200kW) and testing them. The goal was to evaluate their performance and validate their suitability to be successfully introduced in the market after the project. The testing stage had three different steps with an increasing level of systems integration, starting from the motor and the power electronics alone, followed by subsequent systems integration or replication (pedal, gearbox, etc.) and ending with the full integration in a commercial van. Cidaut Foundation has been in charge of the powertrain integration activities, in which we employed real world-based driving scenarios to assess and refine the response of the motor prior to its installation in a van.
Finally, as last event of the project, all three EU-funded GV04 projects (ReFreeDrive, modulED and Drivemode) will celebrate a public online workshop on the 16th April, 10:00-12:30 CET. The workshop, titled “Next generation electric drivetrains for fully electric vehicles” will serve as a platform to share with all relevant stakeholders as well as the general public interested in the project how each project has addressed the challenges they aimed to solve, which solutions they have proposed to overcome them and, last but not least, which results they have obtained compared with the KPIs set at the proposal stage. If you would like to attend the project, you can sign up for FREE on the following link: https://copperalliance.zoom.us/webinar/register/7716150099629/WN_aMcHAdDLQ2-Ao3q0cyMUfw
Urban mobility is smoothly changing, the electric vehicles are slowly but firmly conquering their natural environment. The cities are the places were the highest percentage of the population is concentrated, for this reason it is very important to improve the quality of the air, highly related to the health. At the same time the cities are the places where the travelling distances are shorter, lower to 30km as an average daily. And finally, the cities are the places with a higher number of transport means coexist.
The scenario that has been described involves a high interaction between different transport modes from walking to public transport going through monocycles, scooter, bicycles, motorbikes and four wheelers. The aim of Multi-Moby project, funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme, is focused on the four wheelers, taking as a base a high performance low consumption urban electric vehicle, Cidaut is leading the activities to ensure the safety of all the actors involved in the urban mobility. To get this ambitious target the safety is tackled from an integral point of view, including active and passive aspects.
From the active point of view the vehicle is equipped with advanced driving assistance systems that allow the identification of the more vulnerable users of the road and to take autonomous decisions in order to about accidents.
From the passive point of view, an optimized structure and ad-hoc developed restrain system protect the occupants in the event of a lateral, frontal or rear crash. But also, in the case that the active safety systems cannot avoid the accident against a vulnerable road user, the structure of the vehicle has been designed to minimize the damage.
Cidaut is making a detailed analysis of the automotive value chain in Castilla y León region to determine the viability of a micro-factory to assemble urban electric vehicles based on the principle of kilometer zero production. The analysis encompasses companies of different sizes from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) going through suppliers of different levels (TIER 1, TIER 2, …). Although the analysis is still ongoing, as a preliminary conclusion it can be highlighted the strength of the automotive value change in the region, covering a high percentage of the components production needs. This production capability is complemented by the existence of Research and Development departments in many of the providers analyzed, the presence in the region of high skilled Technological Center in the automotive sector and the contribution of several Universities with high experience in mechanics, electronics and communication.
The local production minimizes the transport of the components from the manufacturing site to the assembly plant, reducing the noxious emissions in the manufacturing phase. This effect is complemented in the use phase due to the fact that the vehicle vehicles to be produced are small urban vehicles, optimized to reduce their energy consumption and equipped with photovoltaic panels that allow to increase the daily range by 20 kms a day, as an average along the year.
The scope of this project is not only regional but European. In the frame of the Avangard Project, funded by the European Commission in the Horizon 2020 Programme, Cidaut leads the activities related to the analysis of different European regions where the installation of the micro-factories would have a larger impact in the reduction of the environmental impact, the creation of job, the enhancement of the automotive value chain and the benefits for the society. The regions under study are located in the following countries: Finland, Greece, Italy, Poland and Portugal.
On 16 and 17 March the Ente Regional de la Energía de Castilla y León and the company Tresca Engineering organised the online conferences “RENEWABLE HYDROGEN IN THE INDUSTRY OF CASTILLA Y LEÓN”.
The conference was opened by Mr. Carlos Javier Fernández Carriedo, Minister of Economy and Finance of the Junta de Castilla y León. The agenda was divided into two days and included the virtual presence of experienced speakers from the Ente Regional de Energía de Castilla y León, the European Commission, CNH2-Centro Nacional del Hidrógeno, ICE-Instituto para la Competitividad Empresarial de Castilla y León, CIDAUT, Enagás and Carburos Metálicos.
Europe’s ambitious objective of climate neutrality requires a remodelling of the current energy systems, inevitably towards others that are more environmentally friendly, which, on the other hand, are less manageable than the current ones. This is where hydrogen takes on an absolute protagonism as an energy vector, enabling flexible interconnection between the electricity and gas systems, in addition to achieving the decarbonisation of the economy in its final use.
In July 2020, the European Commission presented the document: “European Hydrogen Strategy: towards a climate-neutral Europe” (EU Hydrogen Strategy), which aims to establish the necessary guidelines to develop the role of clean hydrogen in reducing emissions in the EU economy in an efficient manner. Subsequently, and in line with this document, in September 2020, the Spanish Government published the document “Hydrogen Roadmap: A commitment to renewable hydrogen”, which offers a vision for 2030 and 2050, the aim of which is to ensure the industrial and technological positioning of our economy within the EU framework.
In the industry sector, the main driving force of the economy, there is a commitment to the use of high purity H2 as a raw material in current processes (e.g. refinery, ammonia production, extraction of metals from oxides) from renewable resources and its use to cover high temperature thermal demands (e.g. material fusion processes, ceramic furnaces, cement factories, glass).
Our CIDAUT colleague Jose Ignacio Dominguez had the opportunity to speak about the “DEGREE OF INNOVATION FOR THE USE AND IMPLEMENTATION OF HYDROGEN IN INDUSTRY”, as a key point in the development of the hydrogen technologies.
The conference “Renewable hydrogen in the industry of Castilla y León” highlighted the immense challenge in which we are immersed, the need to undertake the decarbonisation of the industrial sector as soon as possible and the tremendous opportunities that arise for the industry in this context.
