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EV BASS PROJECT

Basic information

Project title Electric Vehicle Battery Swapping Station
Project acroynm EV BASS
Project leader Asst. Prof. Hrvoje Pandžić
Start date 2015-10-01
Duration 36 months
Budget 748.172,25 HRK (~ 100.000 EUR)
Financing HRZZ (Croatian Science Foundation)

PROJECT ABSTRACT

Vehicles have been almost exclusively run by the petroleum fuel oil distillates ever since the introduction of modern internal combustion engine in 1885. As a result, the personal vehicles are responsible for at least 10% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Besides these environmental issues, the volatility of crude oil prices and the advances in alternative fuel technologies have started generating new ideas on more ecological, cheaper, and more efficient personal vehicles. Recent commercial success of Nissan Leaf, Tesla, and others, have put Electric Vehicles (EVs) in the spotlight. However, there are serious obstacles that need to be removed in order to make EVs attractive.

For a successful rollout of EVs, it is required to establish an adequate charging infrastructure. The ubiquitous access to such infrastructure would help to mitigate concerns associated with limited EV range and long charging times. Battery Swapping Stations (BSSs) are poised as effective means of eliminating the EVs long waiting times associated with charging the batteries. These stations are mediators between the power system and their customers. In order to successfully deploy this type of stations, business and operating models are required, that will allow it to generate profits while offering a fast and reliable alternative to charging batteries.

The first part of the project is focused on analysis of current scientific and commercial state-of-the-art, as well as legislative. Based on this, a viable business model will be developed as a basis of the BSS business case. The research will then diverge in two directions. The first direction is the optimization of the BSS operation, which includes its day-ahead scheduling and real-time operation. These optimization models are complex as they consider uncertainty of electricity prices, demand for battery swapping and the actual state-of-charge of the incoming batteries that have been swapped with fully charged ones. The second direction is the control and communication of the BSS. Namely, each battery’s state-of-charge needs to be properly assessed, and its charging pattern needs to correspond to the one set by the optimization model. There are also communication issues when communicating with a large number of batteries. Communication protocols, depending on the size of the BSS, will also be defined within the project.

The second part of the project will assess the impacts that BSS and a group of BSSs have on power systems. Here, points of view of Distribution and Transmission System Operators will be considered. Current practice for planning of both distribution and transmission networks will be examined as the influence of BSS to these planning techniques needs to be quantified as well.

The final stage of the project will be the deployment of a testbed that consists of a central computer, a large number of EV battery stacks, and all the accompanying control and communications infrastructure. This will provide the opportunity to test the developed algorithms in a realistic environment and to verify the results.




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