An intensive week on electromobility
Jonas Fredriksson explains about Swedish Electromobility Center’s summer school on components and systems studies for electromobility. An intensive week where lectures and practical exercises will be mixed with social activities.
Who is the summer school intended for?
– It is intended primarily for PhD students with interest and research profile in electromobility, at all Swedish universities. However, researchers from the Centre’s industrial partners are also welcome.
Why do you arrange a summer school?
Swedish Electromobility Centre is a national centre of excellence with doctoral students and researchers at several Swedish universities. This means that common activities lead to a lot of traveling for some members. In the summer school we gather in one place for a week and study and discuss electromobility focused together. In addition, participants get the opportunity to get to know each other and create contacts with other researchers and research students who deal with different aspects of electric mobility.
What will I learn during the week?
The course gives both overview and in-depth knowledge of key components such as batteries, fuel cells and electrical machines as well as tools for systems studies that will be used for evaluation, design and construction of vehicle drive systems.
Why should I attend – aren’t the courses I take at my university enough?
Courses taken within your own research school are usually in-depth courses within your research area. Because electromobility is an interdisciplinary research field, finding courses that provide a comprehensive picture can be difficult. The summer school provides both a broader understanding of the electromobility area and of where the research challenges lie within the different parts of the area.
I want to participate. What do I do?
– You register for the course at Swedish Electromobility Centre’s website. The course itself and course material are free, but you pay for travel, accommodation and living. During an intensive week, lectures and practical exercises are mixed with social activities. The examination consists of active participation during the week as well as the solution of a project assignment that will be reported on a separate occasion.
Swedish Electromobility Center summer school
When: 21-25 May 2018
Where: Toftaholm Manor, outside Värnamo. http://toftaholm.se/
Registration: By April 12th
Read more about the summer school and register >>
http://emobilitycentre.se/en/event/summerschool-2018/
Is electrification of road transportation the path to the future?
On Jan 31, 2018 Maria Taljegård, presented her licentiate thesis “The impact of an Electrification of Road Transportation on the Electricity system in Scandinavia”. After the presentation, I caught up with Maria to hear more about her research.
In order to reach the 2020 CO2 emission target set by the EU, the transport sector must reduce emissions by 20%. In essence, this will probably entail an electrification of the road transport sector through EVs (Electric Vehicles) and very likely, a higher demand on the electricity system through static charging or ERS (Electric Road Systems). In her thesis, Maria looks at the possibility for EVs to provide a demand-side management to the electricity grid.
Using the Norwegian road, E39 as the focus of the study, breaking it down into segments with information points, the study showed large variations in energy and power demands over time and location along the road. Further calculations were made by developing a vehicle energy consumption model to estimate the variation in energy and power demands, given different electrification options and drivetrains.
The thesis found that an installation of ERS on all European (E) and national (N) roads in Sweden and Norway could cover over 50% of vehicle traffic. Installing ERS on 25% of the total E and N roads would connect all the larger cities in Norway and Sweden. It was also shown that with a cap on CO2 corresponding to 93% of emission deduction by the year 2050, the electricity demand from EVs in Scandinavia and Germany could be met by mainly an increase in generation from wind power and to some extent, coal in combination with carbon capture and storage.
“A smart integration of passenger EVs (vehicle-to-grid; V2G) can to some extent be used to manage variability of renewable energy sources by, for instance, substantially reduce the need for peak power capacity in the system.”
I caught up with Maria after her presentation and posed a few questions that had come to mind while listening to her results:
- In your opinion, what were the biggest advancements in your field during 2017?
“I think autonomous cars are definitely an interesting area. And battery development. There are aspects we don’t know much about yet – such as what V2G will cost and how it will affect the lifespan of batteries. Another very interesting perspective is how the future will look in regard to how we travel and how we use our cars. Will we own our cars or share them? And if V2G gets implemented on a large scale, how will that be resolved if you, for example, lend your car to someone when you’re on vacation?”
- What do you think the near future will bring to your area?
“Our driving habits will probably change a lot depending on which direction development goes. For now, the biggest issue for larger vehicles, of course, is range. A truck should optimally have at least a 4 hr range and for today’s batteries to manage that, they would get too heavy. I think an expansion of ERS will have the biggest effect on road transportation costs for heavy vehicles because it would reduce the demand on range and they might drive the same routes most of the time, meaning ERS routes could be optimised. And if we add autonomous, electric road trains to the equation, personnel costs (drivers) could be reduced. Furthermore, driverless, heavy traffic could move at night, eliminating the cost of drivers altogether.”
Finally, I asked Maria what her biggest take-aways and findings of her work were. She answered, “Smart charging can help the electricity grid avoid having to invest in peak power. A big challenge with optimised charging – ie V2G – is the communication between homes and cars, so that not all electric appliances run at the same time.”
“I think all experts must interlink so that we get the expertise we need from all areas. One of the biggest assets of the Electromobility Centre is that I can network with these experts and find new contact points with people I wouldn’t necessarily have found on my own.”
Text Magdalena Einarsen
photo, Maria Taljegård & Magdalena Einarsen
Summer School 2018 registration now open
For the second year in a row, Swedish Electromobility Centre will host a summer school focusing on Components and system studies for electromobility. It is intended for PhD students in the field of e-mobility.
Registration deadline is 12 April.
Don’t miss you chance to take part in an intense week of learning, interacting and having fun together. We hope to see you there!
Postdoctoral position in Optimal usage of vehicle batteries by multi-scale modelling
There is currently a Postdoctoral position in Optimal Usage of Vehicle Battery by Multi‐Scale Modelling at Automatic Control, Division of Systems and Control Department of Electrical Engineering Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden.
For more information and application: https://www.chalmers.se/en/about-chalmers/Working-at-Chalmers/Vacancies/Pages/default.aspx
Please mark your application REF: 20180076
Application deadline: March 12
Fuel cell Armadillo: demo project verifying 300 km range
Swedish Electromobility has, together with several other partners, financed a demo of powered Armadillo with semi-trailer.
