E-mobility Technology Summer 2020

Electrically
Mobile
01
CHARGING
INFRASTRUCTURE
Electric Mobility – The Infrastructure
Perspective
A lot has been written on the possibilities
that electric mobility offers. In particular,
micro mobility has been in the news a lot
lately, especially with the current pandemic.
We are presented a vision where electric
scooter and e-bike sharing will revolutionise
public transportation, eliminate cars in urban
spaces and create green and pleasant cities.
However, the infrastructure perspective
is often missing from this narrative, despite
accessible, smart charging offering huge
potential to make electric, shared mobility
more convenient, more environmentally
friendly and more cost effective.
Thinking differently
With personal internal combustion engine cars,
we are all used to thinking a certain way about
mobility. We drive until the tank is empty, fill
up, and carry on. Except on long trips or for
frequent drivers, filling up happens maybe once
a week. Electric mobility forces a change in
thinking, as now the vehicle is filled up when not
in use, so you start the ride with a “full tank”.
Shared micro mobility requires a further
change. Now the vehicle is used much more
frequently, and charging is the necessary
annoyance that allows the user to do what they
actually want, namely to be mobile. The vehicle
is usually charged fully then used until empty, at
which point it stands useless until it is charged
again. For public sharing, dedicated personnel
are required to organise charging or swap
batteries. In private sharing, the user is required
to invest their time finding a suitable place to
plug in. A lot of activity in the background is
needed to give the user that effortless ride.
However, we at INTIS envisage smart
infrastructure replacing that activity in the
background. This requires accessible charging
infrastructure allowing automatic opportunity
charging, coupled with good use of data and
communications. In this scenario, neither
the user nor the operator need greatly
concern themselves with making sure the
vehicle gets its energy because that is taken
care of by the infrastructure solution.
Smart Services Provide Solutions,
Not Just Technology – Commentary By
The University Of Duisburg-Essen
One area where the potential of electromobility
is becoming apparent is in intralogistics,
although this potential is often inhibited by
incorrect usage behaviour. Vehicles are plugged
in to charge as often as possible to minimise
down-time. This high charging frequency
may be suitable for lithium-ion batteries, but
it drastically reducing the lifetime of leadgel
batteries which are still very common in
industry. Even worse, fleets and equipment are
not usually updated all at once, meaning a mix
of battery types ends up being charged the
same way by the same equipment. This leads
to a high replacement rate with associated
materials, time, and overhead costs.
Smart Charging – A Real World Application
The solution is smart charging in connection
with a fleet management system, where the
charging infrastructure identifies the vehicle and
battery type, connects to the fleet management
system and determines the optimal charging
behaviour based on stored information and
historic usage patterns. These usage patterns
provide information about the expected duration
and distance of the next drive, based on daily
driving patterns, which allow the smart charging
application to calculate whether the battery
level is sufficient or the battery needs to be
charged. The availability of good data to develop
relevant information is crucial to the efficacy of
smart charging.
Smart, inductive charging system
The project Smart Inductive Solutions, a spinoff
of the university Duisburg-Essen in Germany, is
developing a system to address this issue. A datadriven
approach is used to focus on value propositions
for the individual customer, with very promising
results coming from first tests currently running under
real-world conditions. The gathering, transmission,
and evaluation of required data in combination with
wireless charging are key components of the project.
The system consists of several core sub-systems,
principally the charging infrastructure, the application
server and multiple client workstations, as displayed
in figure 2. Besides providing energy, the charging
infrastructure provides bidirectional communication
between the vehicles and the back-end. When a
vehicle is parked, the charging infrastructure identifies
this vehicle and loads the applicable battery data
from the application server. The application server
keeps track of each charging process and determines
e-mobility Technology International 4 5
Summer 2020