TECHNOLOGY FOR CHANGE

Edison Project Marries Wind Power to Electric Vehicles

R. Colin Johnson | Date: 12-28-09 | Comments

The Danes already generate 20 percent of their power with wind, but plan to boost that to 40 percent by 2020 when they want to have 200,000 all electric cars on the road being charged by wind power.

The recent United Nations Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark was a fitting location for the effort, since the Danes are already committed to reducing their carbon footprint by switching to electric vehicles. Their pilot project is called EDISON, which stands for "Electric vehicles in a Distributed and Integrated market using Sustainable energy and Open Networks." The EDISON project, just getting underway this fall, is aimed at demonstrating that wind power can be used to keep a nationwide fleet of electric vehicles recharged. The international project runs through 2012 with $9 million in funding. Industry partners also participating in the program include IBM Research (Zurich) which will supply distributed integration technology development, and Siemens (Munich) which will supply the fast-charge and battery-swapping technologies.

The pilot program is being run on the small Danish island of Bornholm, where a consortium of government, industry and research organizations will perfect the use of wind power to charge a small fleet of electric vehicles. Bornholm will serve as a microcosm of the Denmark power grid since it is only connected to the mainland by a single under sea cable. Because of its isolation, the EDISON project will be able to run in island-only-mode to prove that green energy technologies can work without support from the traditional non-renewable energy sources on the grid. Bornholm already generates one of the world's highest shares of its energy from renewable sources--30 percent.

The basic idea is to charge the vehicles at night when the wind continues to blow, but when there is low demand for electricity. During the day, each vehicle will become a mobile electricity storage unit that can be plugged back in after the morning commute, potentially supplying energy back to the grid during times of peak demand, thus smoothing out energy distribution woes.

Electricity charging stations powered by wind turbines will be installed in private homes as well as in corporate and public parking lots. Both fast-charging stations as well as battery swapping alternatives will be explored by the project.

The Danish do not manufacture any electric cars domestically. Instead, EDISON will be evaluating several models available in Europe. The first is a Fiat Fiorino Combi converted to an electric vehicle by the Italian company EnerBLU. The EnerBLU electric vehicle has a battery capacity of 20 kilowatt-hours, a driving range of up to 150 kilometers (93 miles) and a maximum speed of 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour).

All the technology is slated to be in place and ready to run an island-wide live demonstration to prove the concept from 2011-2012.

Click here for "THINK" Leadership Forum Presentation Videos

IBM Resources

Videos

TWITTER FEED

23 minutes agoGood morning from Los Angeles! #ibmcloud
26 minutes agoThat's it from me! Over to North America.
31 minutes agoThe data processing of Roland Garros 2012 (#RG12) rests on IBM Private Cloud http://t.co/JUaY1ItM [French Press release]
about 2 hours agoIBM Accelerates Business from Supply to Demand with New #Cloud Offerings For Smarter Commerce http://t.co/OFxknOb0 [Press Release]
about 3 hours agoHow IBM #SmartCloud Foundation technology powers cloud adoption? IBM VP @SLHebner explains here http://t.co/sSzfa0O5 [VIDEO]
about 4 hours agoIBM's Fiona Cullen will present ‘The Power of #Cloud: Driving Business Model’ On May 24 @ Utrecht, Netherlands #cloudforum2012 #ibmcloud
about 5 hours agoBlog Post: Why service providers should not ignore cloud http://t.co/ZfQyue4r via @eMarcusNet #thoughtsoncloud
about 6 hours agoHave any #cloudmoment? Share your story with us via Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and tag it. See other stories http://t.co/J4ntsaQ5
about 7 hours agoSign up now for IBM #SmartCloud Enterprise! No charge for select VMs (only till May 28). More Details >> http://t.co/2LEzOUZC #ibmcloud
about 7 hours agoRT @HansMoen: See this video from @IBMCloud to learn how to cut costs in building innovation in your business http://t.co/XOyJoFn6 #clou ...