Sustainability: The end user at the center of a new electric mobility project

Promoting the diffusion of electric mobility in Europe through several actions which put the user and his needs at the center of innovation. This is the goal of the new European project USER-CHI [1], with the participation of ENEA with Roma Servizi Mobilità, Enel X and DSI, together with other partners from Spain, Finland, Germany and Hungary.

"This project takes into account the different needs of the user such as charging time of the electric vehicle, energy sources used in the workstations and additional services to make the transition to this type of mobility more attractive", Natascia Andrenacci, researcher at the ENEA Systems and Technologies for Mobility and Accumulation Laboratory, explained.

The urban areas involved in the project are 2 in Italy (Rome and Florence), 2 in Spain (Barcelona and Murcia) and 1 each in Germany (Berlin), Hungary (Budapest) and Finland (Turku). "In Rome, the construction of a charging station for multi-source electric mobility is envisaged through the integration with the electricity grid, renewable source and stationary storage system", Andrenacci pointed out.

The project foresees several synergic actions between the user of the electric vehicle and the distribution network, such as the "vehicle to grid" (V2G) or the possibility for the network to draw a certain amount of energy from the batteries of the vehicles to cope with power demand peaks. Another step will be to harmonize and integrate the currently existing technological tools, business models and regulatory system.

"These actions involve working on charging systems (slow, fast, ultra-fast), strategies for exploiting electric mobility, arrangement and type of charging stations, payment terms and type of charging services offered, up to the integration with the smart grid, that is to say the electrical networks equipped with intelligent sensors ”,  Andrenacci continued.

One of the key elements of USER-CHI is to create and develop charging solutions aimed at satisfying the needs and desires of users from different socio-economic contexts and market segments.

To this aim, for example, a charging station was planned that takes into account a vehicle's charging time, positioning it near a series of useful services for the user such as a shopping center or by providing different  charging sources in the same location. .

"Slow overnight charging and ultra-fast charging solutions must be orchestrated with a user-centered approach, also ensuring technological interoperability and payment functions of the service, so that for the end user there are no additional charges when abroad, such as having to make a subscription with another refill manager or having to fit adapters for the connector.

At the same time, cities must actively stimulate and promote citizen participation in the co-creation of strategies that integrate electromobility with other aspects of smart cities, in particular energy, safety and urban planning ", Andrenacci concluded.

The immediate collection of citizens' feedback also through dedicated dashboards

[2] is the tool allowing to monitor the level of satisfaction of the service. The solutions will be examined from different technical points of view, ranging from legal-regulatory to economic, in order to ensure the viability and large-scale replicability of the project.

For more information please contact:

Natascia Andrenacci, ENEA – Laboratory Systems and Technologies for Mobility and Storage,  natascia.andrenacci@enea.it

[1] Innovative solutions for USER centric CHarging Infrasctruture

[2] Interactive tool for collecting, monitoring and displaying data and information Energy: ENEA analysis of national post-COP21 decarbonisation policies