Smart Solar Charging finalist in European Regiostars Awards
Smart Solar Charging is picked as one of twenty-five finalists for the Regiostars Awards. With this prize for the most innovative best practices in Europe the European Commission aims to inspire others. Smart Solar Charging, led by Utrecht Sustainability Institute and LomboXnet, is a bidirectional charging system for electric cars. Car batteries can either charge or deliver sustainable energy back to the electricity grid. Therefore Smart Solar Charging contributes to a sustainable Utrecht Region, with Utrecht Science Park as one of the living labs.
European inspiration
Since 2008, Regiostars Awards have been awarded by the Directorate General of Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission. The Awards honour European projects that deliver exceptional achievements and novel approaches in regional development. In 2020 a record number of 206 projects have been submitted for five categories that are crucial for the development of future European policy.
Each category has five finalists, one of which will be declared the winner of the category. Moreover, all finalists are eligible for the public choice award, determined by the number of public votes received. You can vote for Smart Solar Charging by giving it a blue heart in the category Industrial Transition for a Smart Europe. Once the heart icon turns blue, your vote is received. It is possible to cast your vote until 15th September 2020.
Smart Solar Charging steams ahead
In the Utrecht Region in the Netherlands, Smart Solar Charging develops the bidirectional ecosystem in combination with shared electric cars in different living labs. Each living lab has its own user profile, which ensures the development of broadly adaptable solutions that can be implemented directly on a large scale.
The Utrecht Science Park is a unique living lab because it combines education, living, working and health care. In this living lab, entrepreneurs and researchers of the HU and the UU will optimize the integral system with respect to energy performance, user behavior and value models. Utrecht Science Park is the world’s first campus that features bidirectional charging according to the new open ISO 15118 standard. This charging system can both charge and discharge electric cars, thus enabling them to actively participate in smart energy networks. Since the bidirectional technique can be implemented on a large scale, other car manufacturers can also quickly adopt bidirectional charging.
A recent addition to the living labs is the city-wide network in the city of Utrecht. Opened in March 2019 by King Willem-Alexander in the city district Lombok, meanwhile there are already 200 smart bidirectional charging stations and 50 shared electric cars in 9 out of 10 districts of the city of Utrecht. The goal is to double the amount of locations in the city of Utrecht by the end of 2021.
Project
Led by Utrecht Sustainability Institute and LomboXnet, partners Utrecht University, HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, Last Mile Solutions, We Drive Solar, New Solar, The People Group, Jedlix, Stedin and Smart Solar Charging BV work together to realize the sustainable energy system. The Smart Solar Charging project is supported by the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRO) Kansen voor West II.