Electromobility in Switzerland
Electric cars feed their electricity back into the grid when they’re not being driven
22.09.2023
Can bidirectional charging of electric cars contribute to a sustainable energy future? Daniele Farrace, an engineer at distribution grid operator Azienda Elettrica di Massagno (AEM) in Ticino, has no doubts. He shows how this could work one day.
It’s only half past ten in the morning and the sun’s already burning mercilessly from the sky. The thermometer’s reading over 30 Celsius when we meet Daniele Farrace at a Mobility station in Tesserete near Lugano. Not ideal conditions for a video interview – but the 36-year-old from Ticino is smiling despite his shirt and long trousers. “The heat suits the topic.” The temperatures that prevailed throughout Switzerland at the end of August were “above-average” even by Ticino standards, according to the doctor of engineering (ETH). This is an ideal time to talk about the energy transition.
Farrace is the Chief Innovation Officer of distribution grid operator Azienda Elettrica di Massagno (AEM) SA. The company employs some 25 people and serves around 9’000 customers. “We’re small, which is why we need to be innovative and agile,” Farrace emphasises. AEM is the local network operator: At the beginning of the year, the company was Watt d’Or energy prize awarded. It was singled out for a project in the little village of Lugaggia, where AEM was able to significantly increase the municipality’s consumption of its self-produced electricity thanks to an intelligent networking of electricity consumers and solar producers. For Farrace, such awards are no reason to sit back – on the contrary. “The faster we can push ahead with the energy transition, the better.”
Optimising self-produced electricity
Like in Lugaggia, AEM has also linked houses in the municipalities of Massagno and Tesserete to form what’s known in Switzerland as a ‘Zusammenschluss zum Eigenverbrauch’ (ZEV) – an association of electricity producers and consumers. These are groups of households and commercial and recreational facilities that generate and band together to use their renewable energy. And here comes the Project “V2X Suisse” into the game: the idea behind V2X or bidirectional charging is that electric cars not only consume electricity, but also feed it back into the grid when they’re not being driven. “The technology allows us to store the overproduction from our photovoltaic systems in the cars’ batteries during the day. Then at night, when the PV systems are no longer producing electricity, we feed the energy from the car back into the local grid.” The public electricity grid is only tapped when the available energy has been used up. AEM uses algorithms to control this process. It estimates the load profiles of the aggregated households based on past consumption data and current weather forecasts.
E-cars harbour “huge potential”
Daniele Farrace believes strongly in the future of V2X, which is why he’s fully committed to his “V2X Suisse” side-project. Not least because, according to estimates, Switzerland will be home to some two million electric vehicles by 2035. “This trend has huge potential.” By comparison: the Leibstadt nuclear power plant today achieves a nominal output of some 1.22 gigawatts of electrical energy, while two million e-cars have the potential of delivering around 15 gigawatts of electricity.
As a next step, local grid operator AEM is looking to develop business models together with its partners in the V2X side-project – namely Mobility, Primeo Energie (Zurich city’s electricity utility), the FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, and the OST University of Applied Sciences of Eastern Switzerland – to ensure the economic viability of the V2X model going forward. Farrace stresses that the challenges here are not primarily in the technical area. “The technology exists, and it works. What’s needed is the right framework,” he says. Legislation and regulations in Switzerland are still too conservative. He’s not deterred by this. “We want our input to make an active contribution to the energy transition.” To achieve this goal, the V2X pioneer is happy to accept interviews at temperatures over 30 Celsius.
This article was created at the half-way point of the project in autumn 2023.
What is “V2X-Suisse”?
The temporary research project ran operationally from autumn 2022 to spring 2024. Fifty bidirectional Honda e-cars were integrated into Mobility’s regular car sharing system. It was the first large-scale test of bidirectional charging electric cars in Switzerland. It was intended to show how this technology can be used to break peak loads in the power grid and how solar power stations can optimise their own consumption. It also wanted to investigate the business potential of bidirectional vehicles in Switzerland and test the competition between potential flexibility buyers at three grid levels (Swissgrid, distribution grid operators and private consumption alliance).
The final report will be published on ARAMIS (the Federal Administration’s research database) in summer 2024. ARAMIS – The Federal Administration’s research database – Home page (admin.ch)
Conclusion: The project proved the technical feasibility and gave impetus to the bidirectional technology. It showed that in addition to the tried-and-tested V2H (vehicle-to-home), V2 G (vehicle-to-grid) also works technically, both for the grid and the system. However, it is not yet worthwhile for a car sharing company to operate economically.
The following companies were involved in the project in addition to Mobility: Automobile manufacturers Honda, Software developer sun2wheel, Charging station developer EVTEC, aggregators tiko, scientific support by novatlantis, in collaboration with the ETH. The project will be supported by the pilot and demonstration programme of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy SFOE support.
Images Copyright: Patrick Besch