Denmark to test wind powered cars in smart grid experiment

Monday, 22 June 2009 06:23

Cars could fill gaps in Denmark’s renewable energy supply if an experiment is successful. In a new vehicle-to-grid (V2G) experiment, Denmark will use batteries contained within electric cars to store excess wind power that will be fed back into the power grid when the wind isn’t blowing.

To be conducted on the island of Bornholm, parked electric cars will store excess energy that is generated when the wind is blowing particularly hard. When the wind isn’t blowing, the cars will feed electricity back into the power grid.

Environmentalists believe V2G technology would provide a giant step to a greener future but its development is still in the experimental change. The pilot to be conducted on Bornholm will be the largest V2G test as the 40,000 inhabitants will participate in the effort.

Denmark is already a world leader in wind power and plans to replace 10 percent of the country’s cars with electric vehicles. The island of Bornholm wants to go much further and replace all gasoline-powered vehicles.

Wind already provides for 20 percent of Denmark’s energy needs but the country has enough turbines in place to bring that total up to 40 percent. It is the intermittent supply of wind power that keeps Denmark from relying more on clean wind power as an energy source. At other times the wind is blowing too hard, the power grid overloads, and the turbines are knocked offline.

The Electric Vehicles in a Distributed and Integrated Market using Sustainable Energy and Open Networks Project, thankfully referred to as Edison for short, aims to prove the viability of V2G technology so Denmark can place more wind turbines to eventually provide 50 percent of Denmark’s power supply.

Each of the electric vehicles in the test will have extra capacity reserved to store wind power that will be transferred back to the island and not used by the car. Dieter Gantenbein, a researcher at IBM’s Zurich Research Laboratory, said the car batteries will act as a buffer.

IBM is developing the software needed to run Bornholm Island’s smart grid and will demonstrate its progress next week. When the test cars are plugged in and the batteries are charging they will absorb the excess power that the infrastructure can’t handle during particularly windy times. When the wind isn’t blowing, the batteries will feed that stored power, contained within the excess capacity of the battery, back to the power grid, according to Gantenbein.

“It’s never been tried at this scale,” said Hermione Crease of Sentec, a developer of smart grid software. She added that there are numerous ongoing smart grid tests testing various technologies. However, the Bornholm test will be the first to prove V2G technology.

Important questions need answers, said Andrew How of RLTec, another smart grid developer. For example, it remains unclear what the long-term costs are with V2G technology.

Jorgen Christensen, of the Danish Energy Association, said the project aims to answer some of these important questions. The Danish Energy Association, in conjunction with Siemens and Dong Energy, will run the experiment.

IBM
One New Orchard Road
Armonk, NY 10504
http://www.ibm.com

Sentec
Brunswick House
61-69 Newmarket Road
Cambridge CB5 8EG
http://www.sentec.co.uk

Siemens
Wittelsbacherplatz 2
D-80333 Munich
Germany
http://w1.siemens.com

Dong Energy
Kraftværksvej 53 - Skærbæk
7000 Fredericia
Denmark
http://www.dongenergy.com