The B2B platform for full-electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles: Policy News

The Danish government and power companies intend to have electric cars on the streets in no time. While electric mobility is on the agenda of all major economies, no country pushes ahead like Denmark. The reason might be less environmental motivation than seeing EVs as solution to some inconveniences of the Danish power mix. International standards seem all of a sudden not that pressing any more.

Powered by wind

The Danish impetus in electric mobility is driven by wind - 21% of Denmark's electricity is produced by windmills, the highest percentage of wind power in a country's energy mix on EU-level. In times of strong wind, the power the windmills deliver at times even exceeds the country's national power requirements. As good as that may sound, it poses a tricky problem: the grid cannot handle the massive power surge and the windmill parks need consequently to be partially shut down just when they perform best.

A part of the energy can be sold to the neighbour countries but in windy nights when Denmark's windmills deliver at their best, electricity demand is minimal. Energy and money are wasted and things will get worse as the percentage of wind power in the Danish energy mix is expected to climb to 50% by 2025.

There is a simple solution to the problem: energy storage. And in the Danish vision, the batteries of electric vehicles are perfect for this job: they charge during night time when general power demand is low and refeed some of their juice into the grid during daytime when general power consumption is at the highest.

Don't let the lack of standards restrain you

Other countries agonise over international norms and standards. What system to choose for communication between car and charging station? How to bill electricity from public plugs? How to harmonise existing standards in the automotive and power sector? Some concrete approaches have been developed but international standards won't be in place before 1 or 2 years.

The Danish do not intend to wait that long. They want electric cars and they want them now. And they are willing to push this goal with lucrative incentives: since February, for example, EVs are exempt from the luxury tax - which in Denmark is 180% plus 25% TVA.

Standards are of course important. EV drivers need to be assured that they can recharge their electric car in the next park house and also travel, relying on correct roaming fees like with their mobile phones. The Danish, however, believe that these things do not forcibly have to all be in place before introducing the first real EVs.

“Why so complicated?” asks Jørgen S. Christensen from the research department of the Danish Energy Association Dansk Energi. “You can put EVs on the roads while gradually expanding the charging infrastructure and integrating cars and charging stations via intelligent software into the grid.”

Cost-effective and comfortable in every day life

The EV incentives make Denmark today the only country in the world where the purchase of an EV is economically viable, estimate experts from the German Frauenhofer institute. Despite still high battery and production costs. This might be because the Danish are ambitious: they want to be among the top three most energy efficient nations in the world. And they see broad uptake of electric mobility as a means to get there.

The iMiEV will be available in Denmark at the end of this year. To let people test the feeling of e-mobility, a young car-sharing company, Moveabout, is installing rent stations for the EV Think all over Copenhagen. Those who need a car can book the EV electronically, simply unplug the car and drive off. Inner city parking will furthermore be free for EVs - a powerful reason to change from gasoline or diesel to electricity as the search for a parking spot is a daily pain for a great number of commuters.

The service to go with

Denmark counts on every 10th new registered car being an EV by 2015, with the municipal authority of Copenhagen pressing ahead and converting already now its 600 vehicle fleet to electric and hybrid. Danish companies have realised the opportunity and have seen flourish some new business concepts. ChoosEV, for example, is a young start-up offering the installation of special charging spots for corporate and private customers.

The Edison project

The conversion, however, will still take some technical work. The Danish power grid as it is today, would not be able to manage millions of EVs plugging in for charging and refeeding. The Danish technical university DTU, major Danish power companies and a number of research institutes have therefore joined forces with companies such as IBM and Siemens in the project “Edison”.

“Edison” stands for “Electric vehicles in a Distributed and Integrated market using Sustainable energy and Open Networks“ and is supposed to test how electric vehicles can be deployed for energy storage in a power grid mainly fed by wind energy.

Second focus will be charging with alternating current and how to handle the accompanying heat development. For the moment there are two competing approaches: having the charge controller inside the car which allows optimised adjustment to the battery, or having the charge controller in the charging station which facilitates easier heat management.

The project, to be carried out in 2011 on the island of Bornholm, is supposed to shed some light on these aspects.