E-mobility: Green eMotion project presents final results

News Article

After four years the EU's flagship electro-mobility project Green eMotion has come to an end, with results being presented at a dedicated event and at the 3rd EU Electro-mobility Stakeholder Forum in Brussels this week. The project has defined and demonstrated a European framework that connects all stakeholders within a seamless, cost-efficient, and interoperable electro-mobility system. EURELECTRIC was one of 42 partners contributing to the project’s success.  

Green eMotion has demonstrated a European ICT architecture that can allow electric car drivers to conveniently access public charging infrastructure right across Europe by making use of so-called roaming services. At the same time, service providers are able to offer their services to all e-mobility stakeholders, including value-added services like reserving a charging point that can make e-driving a more convenient experience.

Starting in 2011, the project developed prototypes to connect the islands of electro-mobility existing at the time. In addition to the overarching ICT architecture, the project defined and tested new standards for e-mobility, especially for ICT interfaces. It also analysed new business models for rolling out public charging infrastructure and showed how it could best be integrated into the electricity grid. Within 10 demo regions and 2 replication regions Green eMotion demonstrated that the findings really work in practice.

EURELECTRIC Secretary-General Hans ten Berge said: “With Green eMotion, e-mobility has taken a giant leap forward. Throughout its four years of work, Green eMotion has shown that true interoperability is possible. But we have also learned that the success of e-mobility will depend on two things: a dynamic, intelligent charging of cars and raising customer awareness through active promotion and policy support. EURELECTRIC is convinced that e-mobility has an essential role to play in achieving a sustainable, future-proof transport and power system – and this project has already set an important precedent.”

Today, missing investments in the required charging infrastructure are hampering a quicker take-off of electro-mobility. Green eMotion showed that the costs of integrating infrastructure into the electricity grid can be significantly reduced by intelligent ways of coordinating the charging time and power. In addition, such “smart charging” can schedule the charging of the cars to take into account high renewable output when there is enough solar power available at noon or wind at night.

EURELECTRIC believes that charging electric vehicles in an intelligent way is key to the rise of electric road transport. Smart charging will therefore also be the topic of a EURELECTRIC workshop on 24 March, which will see the launch of a report on the subject as well as a presentation on Green eMotion.

Results of the project can be found at: www.greenemotion-project.eu

Background – About Green eMotion: The project’s 42 partners joined forces to explore the basic conditions that are needed for Europe-wide electromobility. The primary goal of the project was to demonstrate an interoperable electromobility system with easy access to charging infrastructure all over Europe. Such a system is only feasible with standards that can be adopted internationally. To this end, practical research was conducted in different demonstration regions across Europe with the aim of developing and demonstrating a commonly accepted and user-friendly framework that combines interoperable and scalable technical solutions with a sustainable business platform. The project was funded by the EU.