05.08.2021

Bidirectional Electric Vehicles in the Energy System – How Intelligent Charging Management Works

Die Pilotkunden mit einem der bidirektionalen i3 Fahrzeuge beim Übergabeevent in der BMW Welt

Post at the ET – “Energiewirtschaftliche Tagesfragen im November 2021”

In the BCM – Bidirectional Charging Management project, use cases were designed in the first two years of the project that can integrate bidirectional electric vehicles into the energy system in a user-oriented manner, and the components and software solutions required for their implementation were developed. Pilot operations began in July, with various use cases being tested in practice with around 50 bidirectional BMW i3 vehicles at pilot customers. It is controlled via the local infrastructure of smart metering systems (iMSys) and EEBUS, cloud access with the Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP), and by local control algorithms.

The article describes the use cases implemented in the pilot operation with their potential conflicts and the control options. In particular, the use case of the specification of an envelope curve by the network operator is addressed, for which a so-called control use case has been developed. To transfer the power limitation to the components on the house side, such as wall boxes or EMS, the SMGW in the BDL project translates the instruction from the grid operator into an EEBUS protocol according to the VDE AR 2829-6. Figure 1 shows the primary sequence of the implementation for a charging pole.

esentlicher Ablauf des entwickelten Steueranwendungsfalls für die Umsetzung von Leistungslimitierungen durch den Netzbetreiber

At the beginning of July, the pilot operation of the BCL project was opened with the handover of the first bidirectional BMW i3 vehicles. Currently, 50 of these vehicles are in operation at private and fleet customers and in the company fleets of some project partners. They are being used to test the applications presented and test other use cases, such as peak load capping. The vehicle and wall box data will be analyzed and processed by FfE in pseudonymized form. Thus, in addition to the technical implementation of the use cases, insights into driving and charging profiles related to the use cases will be gained. In turn, these can be used in further analyses, e.g. in distribution network and energy system models, and thus enable the investigation of the effects of nationwide implementation of these use cases and the economic efficiency of the use cases.

The article was published in the November issue of “ET – Energiewirtschaftlichen Tagesfragen” and was prepared by FfE in cooperation with Bayernwerk, BMW, KEO, Kostal and PPC.