Peer-to-peer charging network to improve electric vehicle adoption

Elocity Technologies (ETI)

Location

London

Funding given

$250,000

Description

This project will demonstrate EVPLUG, a peer-to-peer charging network solution designed to remove barriers to the rapid adoption of electric vehicles. EVPLUG is a smart technology designed to convert chargers into blockchain nodes, enabling public and private owners to share charging stations, providing consumers with greater information on their charging behaviour, and giving electricity providers the capability to manage charging loads and implement electric vehicle incentive programs. London Hydro’s role as project collaborator will be to enroll electric vehicle participants and leverage their Green Button Platform. Mindteck Canada Inc., a global technology company will bring system engineering expertise to the project and implement electric vehicle incentive programs.

Status

Project in progress.

Collaborators include:

  • London Hydro

Piloting electric vehicle load shaping with dynamic price signals

FleetCarma

Location

Waterloo, Burlington, York Region, Simcoe Region

Funding given

$249,990

Description

FleetCarma will pilot a scalable load management solution with 60 electric vehicle owners, applying different price signals to determine their effect on charging behaviour. The project intends to encourage charging at times that are preferable for the grid.

Status

Project in progress.

Collaborators include:

  • Alectra Inc.
  • Burlington Hydro

Smart Charging of Electric Vehicles with Real-Time Vehicle Data, Utility Controls & Owner Opt-In/Opt-Out

FleetCarma (formerly CrossChasm)

Location

Toronto

Funding given

$339,637

Description

Thirty plug-in electric vehicles were equipped with network-enabled data loggers to provide utilities with better visibility of EV-related grid impacts. This allowed charging to be optimized according to grid capacity and user preferences.

Status

Project complete.

The project showed that utilities can dramatically shape charging load while ensuring their customers' charging needs are fully met. By integrating EV customers' needs into smart-charging, widespread electric vehicle adoption can be supported in a way that reduces grid impacts and provides the grid a flexible demand resource.

The program demonstrated that the peak electric vehicle charging load could be cut in half each night, and in times of need the charging load could be temporarily reduced by 85%. Both of these reductions could be accomplished while still ensuring that each EV was fully charged by the time the EV owner has defined.

Informative interviews with the participants revealed:

  • More than 70 per cent stated they would not have signed up for the pilot if they did not have data on the state of charge of their EV and if they didn't have a guarantee that their vehicle would be charged by a time that they could set;
  • The majority of participants noted that they did not even notice charging curtailment;
  • 95 per cent reported being interested in future smart-charging programs if it resulted in a reduction if their charging costs and included a battery pre-warm feature; and
  • Over 75 per cent found notification about their EV charging patterns interesting and/or useful.

Collaborators include:

  • AddÉnergie Technologies
  • Toronto Hydro

Intelligent Electric Vehicle Charging Systems (IEVCS)

Tech Mahindra

Location

Niagara on the Lake

Funding given

$1,099,778

Description

Developed an integrated hardware-software solution that allows utilities to gather data on both EV charging patterns and local transformer performance.

Status

Project complete.

Twenty-five EV users in Niagara-on-the-Lake were enrolled in the project helped utilities plan for future EV impacts on the distribution system, and through an In-Home Display, helped consumers manage energy usage. Other observations from the project include:

  • Driving patterns (i.e. speed, use of climate controls) can greatly affect the EV battery performance and the driving range
  • The EV marketplace is evolving quickly with a growing number of Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE – charging equipment) models, features, and vendors.
  • EVSE vendors have a hybrid approach relying on both proprietary and standard communication protocols.
  • LDCs have no way of determining the number of EVs in their territory, nor the individual transformers that they might be drawing from.
  • The ability to share this information with LDCs will be important when the adoption of EVs increases.

Collaborators include:

  • San Diego Gas and Electric
  • Niagara-on-the-Lake Hydro Inc.

SecCharge: Secure Electric Vehicle Ecosystem for Smart Grid

University of Ottawa

Location

Ottawa

Funding given

$768,350

Description

Developed solutions that incorporate charging of EV batteries while incorporating secure payment and privacy of user data, as well as an EV charging station locator mobile application.

Status

Project complete.

The project successfully developed and tested a mobile app that provides:

  1. charging strategies and EV state of charge for the EV owner,
  2. an en-route recharging assistant allows the user to plan a travelling route between cities identifying charging stations along the way, and
  3. the ability to securely pay for en-route charging.

Collaborators include:

  • Hydro-Ottawa Limited
  • IBM Canada Limited