Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download

Foeschungszentrum Jülich - Research in Jülich 1_2013

1|2013 Research in Jülich 17 RESEARCH AT THE CENTRE | Electromobility farms both onshore and offshore in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. On windy days, they will produce more power than will be immediately required. However, on calm days, they will not be able to cover the demand. The study presents a solution that would allow electric cars in 2030 to con- sume up to 60% of the electricity re- quired to charge them from otherwise unused wind energy. In addition to ex- panding the grid to combat bottlenecks, the following strategy will help: electric cars should be recharged throughout the night between the hours of midnight and six in the morning. During this time, the grid is not used to capacity as the de- mand for electricity is low and the po- tential excess electricity from wind ener- gy is particularly high. This strategy is also advantageous for owners of electric cars, as it increases the battery lifetime when the charging process occurs shortly before the next journey begins. “A win-win situation for grid operators and consumers,” says Jochen Linßen. However, none of this changes the fact that batteries still age with each charge cycle. And this is where research- ers see the biggest hurdle for feeding stored energy back into the grid, as it would mean using private electric cars as mobile decentralized temporary stor- age devices. As the vehicle owners would pay for this increased use of the battery with a reduction of up to 25% in battery lifetime, grid operators would have to compensate them accordingly. Electrical vehicles would only be a “small part of a bigger solution for the increased integration of renewables”, conclude the scientists in their study. Long periods with no wind, for example, could not be compensated by using en- ergy stored in electric-vehicle batteries. “To improve the reliability of the energy supply, which is increasingly being fed by renewable sources, innovative sta- tionary energy storage systems are a must – and this is one priority of Jülich research activities,” says Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, member of the Board of Di- rectors. CONCLUSIVE SCENARIO As part of the NET-ELAN project, the scientists had to predict many trends for the future. How much energy will electric cars need on average per kilo- metre travelled? What distance will the average vehicle user drive every day? At what times will the electric cars be re- charged? What sort of grid will provide electric cars with their energy? What power plants or facilities will produce the electricity required? “Studies al- ready exist on some of these aspects. Our study is unique in that we devel- oped a consistent and conclusive sce- nario of a future energy supply in order to investigate the grid integration of electric vehicles,” says Linßen. For him, the project, which linked cars on the road to the electricity indus- try, was a dream job: although he has worked in Jülich on energy systems analysis for more than ten years, he is actually a qualified vehicle engineer. :: Dr. Frank Frick • TU Berlin, Institute for Land and Marine Transportation Systems (ILS), Department for Automotive Engineering (KFZ) • TU Berlin, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Sustainable Electric Networks and Sources of Energy (SENSE) • Centre of Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) • Ford Forschungszentrum Aachen GmbH • Vattenfall Europe AG Innovation Management Partners in the NET-ELAN project Dr. Jochen Linßen from Forschungs- zentrum Jülich is an expert in energy systems analysis and the lead author of the final report on the NET-ELAN project. Will it be possible to recharge six million electric cars in Germany with excess electricity from wind energy in 2030? The NET-ELAN study has the answer. Institute

Pages