Smart charging as key technology for the development of Green Buildings and Neighborhoods (GBNs)

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

The AIHRE project is ready to take off

Last 17th of November we celebrated the official KoM of the AIHRE project ‘Analysis and Promotion of Renewable H2 in the POCTEP region’ at the premises of CIDAUT, coordinator of the project.

AIHRE is a 3-year project funded with 1.5 million euros by the Interreg Spain – Portugal Programme (POCTEP). Its objective is the creation of a new cooperation network for research and transfer in the design, operation, management and integration of energy systems based on renewable hydrogen of great interest for implementation in the Poctep area in Spain and Portugal. This network will promote the economic development of the POCTEP region around the green hydrogen value chain in industry. To this end, the AIHRE project aims at strengthening and consolidating research capacities in the POCTEP territory, identifying solutions for the application of renewable hydrogen value chains and promoting knowledge and tools for the implementation of a renewable hydrogen economy in the Poctep area.

The consortium is made up of nine partners, 5 Spanish: CIDAUT, CTA (Technological Corporation of Andalusia), University of Seville, National Institute of Aerospace Technology “Esteban Terradas”, ITG Technological Institute of Galicia and 4 Portuguese: INEGI, University of Porto, University of Évora and Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre. It is a highly complementary network including universities, technology centres and business clusters.

The kick-off meeting started with a brief presentation of each of the entities and a review of the objectives, tasks and results pursued by the project, as well as a review of the timeline for its achievement.

After the meeting, the consortium visited the CIDAUT facilities for the development of hydrogen technologies HyCid.

You can follow the AIHRE progress on our social media and soon on our website to learn more about this exciting initiative. AIHRE is ready to power green hydrogen!

Cidaut will be present at European Green Deal Projects

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.

CIDAUT returns to the session of the AeH2 in GENERA 2020 one more year

On February 5th, AeH2 organized the Technical Conference “Hydrogen: a key to ensure climate neutrality” held within the framework of the Renewable Energy and Environment Fair, GENERA in Madrid. The full capacity of this conference shows the growing interest in these technologies that will be key in the path towards climate neutrality.

Both at national level, with the Law on Climate Change and the Integrated National Plan for Energy and Climate 2021-2030 (PNIEC), and at international level, with the Green Deal, objectives of renewable energy penetration and decarbonization of the economy are setting very ambitious to reach climate neutrality by 2050.

And that focused on the first part of the Conference: “Climate Neutrality in 2050: the European Green Deal and the Spanish PNIEC” with the participation of D. Alexandru Floristean, legal & project manager in Hydrogen Europe, D. Santiago González, of the department of Regulatory Framework and Corporate Strategy of IDAE and Mr. Javier Brey, president of AeH2. It was moderated by Mr. Antonio González, vice president of AeH2.

In the second part of the conference, moderated by Mr. Miguel A. Peña, secretary of the AeH2, partners of the AeH2 presented hydrogen-based solutions to achieve climate neutrality. It was at this time when CIDAUT, represented by José Ignacio Domínguez, presented its capabilities and work proposals in the production of hydrogen from renewable sources. The rest of the presentations also demonstrated that hydrogen has a great potential in Spain and the drive of projects based on these technologies represents a clear commitment to sustainability and an increasingly green future.

CIDERPLUS 4.0

CIDAUT continues with the dissemination of the advantages of employing the tools of Industry 4.0 in the field of renewable energy generation and energy efficiency under the name of CIDERPLUS 4.0.

CIDERPLUS 4.0 encompasses the design of computer applications that based on cloud computing allow the efficient management of generation equipment through the use of predictive algorithms of demand, on-line predictive maintenance, as well as the definition of ICT tools that facilitate the work of operation, maintenance and monitoring of this type of facilities.

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These ideas have been exposed by CIDAUT in two important forums held in November: the III National Forum of Energy Management – FOROGEn 2017 and the V National Congress of R&D in Defense and Security (DESEi +d 2017).

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The III National Energy Management Forum – FOROGEn 2017 – is a meeting place for companies interested in improving their energy efficiency and energy management professionals. The third edition was celebrated on 16th November 2017 at the headquarters of the COAM (Official College of Architects of Madrid). Through short and dynamic presentations, consumer companies shared their experiences in energy management. CIDAUT had the opportunity to present its concept of CIDERPLUS 4.0.

From the 22nd to the 24th of November 2017, the V edition of the National Congress of R&D in Defense and Security (DESEi+d 2017) was held at the Toledo Infantry Academy. It is the reference point of the R&D sector in Defense and Security, putting in contact the main public and private agents: members of the Armed Forces, universities, companies, University Centers, research institutes, etc.

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Within the congress, Cidaut participated in the thematic area of Plataforms-Energy, showing the application of industry 4.0 in the efficient use of renewable energy integrated on CIDERPLUS 4.0.

Tags: CIDERPLUS 4.0