Bidirectional charging of electric vehicles: enablers & barriers in Europe

Entelios is a leading European Demand Response aggregator and service provider for decentralised energy resources in the industrial and commercial sectors. The company identifies, bundles and sells flexibility of demand assets, decentral generation assets and storage into markets for flexibility and capacity. With its advanced technology it helps transmission system operators, distribution system operators and energy suppliers to maintain grid stability and balance of demand and supply in the electricity system, while helping consumers valorise the flexibility of their demand side assets.

For more information: www.entelios.com

What Elli does

Elli wants to change the way people use electricity in the future by offering data-driven energy
solutions. They make people´s electric life easier, safer, cooler and totally hassle-free. Always and
anywhere.
Every day Elli is doing its best to improve its customers’ life and experience with electricity. The
services and products being developed will influence how they choose and use vehicles and energy in the future.
To offer smart energy and charging solutions, Elli will be able to connect anyone to its electricity
ecosystem including intelligent battery and sustainable storage solutions.

For more information: https://www.elli.eco/en/home

EPQ is a leading aggregator in the flexibility sector in Italy with a broad knowledge and a pioneering vision of energy markets. Specialized in Demand Side Response and other innovative flexibility solutions, our core strength is the ability to address our customer’s needs with a holistic perspective aimed at identifying undiscovered opportunities. Our customers are primarily industrial and commercial companies in search of a different standpoint.

For more information: www.epqformula.it

cyberGRID was founded in 2010 as a specialist in development of innovative Demand Response and Virtual Power Plant solutions, located in Vienna, Austria. Our main goal is to boost the efficient use of energy storage systems in combination with existing generation, transmission and distribution resources and the integration of renewables. We contribute to the European wide research agenda.

For more information: www.cyber-grid.com.

LCP Delta™ combines the expertise of LCP Energy and Delta-EE to provide a single partner across the whole energy value chain. We are a team of passionate people using data, primary research, insights, analysis and models embracing advanced technology and innovation to accelerate the energy transition globally.

For more information: www.delta-ee.com

VaasaETT is an energy consultancy specialized in complex end-user market issues in six continents and over 90 jurisdictions around the world. Our insight is based on the most advanced data science, market leading data sets, outstanding experience and an unrivalled network of sources developed over more than two decades. We assist clients with Market Assessment and Entry, Innovative Development and M&A. Our goal is to support our clients in their efforts to transform and develop for the benefit of consumers, society and sustainability. VaasaETT was one of the two co-founders of smartEn.

For more information: www.vaasaett.com

Joule Assets delivers financing solutions backed by performance insurance for energy efficiency (EE) and demand response (DR) initiatives and projects. We create Energy Reduction Assets (ERA) by integrating simple financing and insurance options with untapped revenue streams from our market analysis software tools like ERA-DR. Leveraging our proprietary database, software and extensive industry expertise, our mission is to expand commerce and reduce barriers in these complicated markets by creating transparency and providing financing solutions.

For more information: www.jouleassets.com

Nuvve Corp. is a San Diego based company, whose mission is to lower the cost of electrical vehicle (EV) ownership while supporting the integration of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar. Their Grid Integrated Vehicle platform GIVe™ transforms EVs into grid assets when charging while guaranteeing the expected level of charge when the vehicle owner needs it. The aggregation of thousands of electric vehicles into a virtual power plant using the GIVe platform, allows Nuvve to participate in electricity markets with a power capacity comparable to traditional generators. Based on vehicle to grid technology or V2G, the GIVe platform gives benefits to public organisations, businesses and homes by reducing the cost of electric infrastructure and reducing CO2 emissions.

For more information: www.nuvve.com

The European Power Exchange EPEX SPOT SE and its affiliates operate physical short-term electricity markets in Central Western Europe and the United Kingdom. As part of EEX Group, a group of companies serving international commodity markets, EPEX SPOT is committed to the creation of a pan-European power market. In 2019, its 302 members traded 593 TWh – a third of the domestic consumption in the eight countries covered. 49% of its equity is held by HGRT, a holding of transmission system operators.

For more information: www.epexspot.com

BeChained has developed a smart-energy platform for sustainable purpose businesses.

BeChained helps energy intensive consumers to manage their flexible distributed resources in order to reduce consumption, energy costs and CO2 emissions.

BeChained certifies business installation carbon footprint and tokenises energy transactions, keeping end-to-end track of the origin of energy and generates CO2 credits for virtuous businesses.

BeChained's ultimate goal is to decarbonise the energy system with demand-side flexibility, reducing the dependency from fossil fuel power plants to balance unexpected peak moments.

For more information: www.bechained.com

Sitting at the nexus of residential solar power, electric vehicle charging, the smart home and customer-centric utilities, dcbel leverages its breakthroughs in power electronics to develop elegant smart energy appliances that enable you power your life on your terms. Our flagship product, dcbel r16, is an integrated bidirectional EV supercharger, powerful solar inverter and smart home energy manager that uses our AI-based energy OS to decarbonize your life and achieve true energy independence.

For more information: https://www.dcbel.energy/

The OpenADR Alliance was created to standardize, automate, and simplify Demand Response (DR) and Distributed Energy Resources (DER) management to enable utilities and aggregators to cost-effectively manage growing energy demand & decentralized energy production, and customers to control their energy future. OpenADR is an open, highly secure, and two-way information exchange protocol and Smart Grid standard.

For more information: https://www.openadr.org/

AFRY (ÅF Pöyry) is a division of Pöyry and Europe’s leading management consultancy specialised in the energy sector, providing strategic, commercial, regulatory and policy advice to Europe’s energy markets. The team of over 200 energy specialists, located across 14 European offices, offers unparalleled expertise in the rapidly changing energy sector. Our team of economists, policy analysts, regulatory experts and market specialists bring many years of industry experience to bear on clients’ problems. Our core strength is the ability to combine expert knowledge of the markets with first class quantitative analysis to offer the highest quality commercial, economic, strategic, and policy advice in the rapidly changing energy sector. In recent years we have conducted extensive work in the related fields of intermittency (wind and solar), renewable grid integration, smart energy and within that smart grids for a wide range on clients internationally including national and pan-European government agencies. Our work has helped inform policy makers of the quantitative benefits of demand side participation in energy markets and is influencing development of policies to encourage development of demand side activity as part of effective, secure and economic decarbonisation of the energy sector. It has also supported the market entry strategies in European markets for a range of demand side providers.

For more information: https://afry.com/en

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

For more information: https://www.microsoft.com

Honeywell is a pioneer in Smart Grid solutions and has helped customers remain in control of their facilities and energy usage through Automated Demand Response programs and Smart Grid technologies. Work with Honeywell for a faster, more accurate and repeatable way of managing peak load optimization targets.

For more information: www.honeywell.com

Grid Singularity is an awarded, open source energy technology startup, placing the individual and the environment at the centre of the energy market by developing the energy exchange engine (d3a.io) and cofounding the Energy Web Foundation. Grid Singularity simulates and operates interconnected grid-aware energy marketplaces, facilitating market participation by connecting aggregators and grid operators through an application interface.

For more information: www.gridsingularity.com/

Green Energy Options, Ltd (GEO), founded in 2006, is now a leading provider of in-home displays, mobile, and on-line services for UK and international domestic energy markets. The products and services are designed to engage users and thereby provide utilities with the ability to advance their relationship with their customers. We pride ourselves on combining the benefits of products and on-line services, that together deliver flexible, scalable solutions that are innovative and offer clear business value. In particular, we can design, develop, and support solutions for businesses who are looking to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive market space.

For more information: www.geotogether.com

Voltalis is the European leader of distributed demand response (DDR). More than 100,000 homes as well as C&I buildings are equipped with its comprehensive proprietary technology operated by Voltalis in real time. Voltalis’ cost-effective solution allow residential customers participate free of charge, and benefit from energy savings. Being able to deliver balance services to the grid within minutes, Voltalis contributes to system safety and reliability, and indeed is the only operator qualified (since 2008) to provide DDR to the TSO for balancing purposes.

For more information: www.voltalis.com

Siemens – Intelligent building automation systems reduce energy consumption without sacrificing comfort: Siemens offers you building automation systems for all building types, sizes, and for every use. Thanks to open communication standards and interfaces you can integrate a wide choice of different building control disciplines like heating, ventilation, air conditioning applications, lights and blinds, up to safety features, and equipment. With special features such as centralized, intelligent energy management and highly efficient and innovative energy saving functions, and the effective interaction of all system components and processes you will achieve significant cost and energy savings.

For more information: www.siemens.com

tiko – Based in Switzerland, Swisscom Energy Solutions AG develops flexible and modular solutions under the brand tiko and provides fast frequency response with a reaction time of less than 1 second using residential prosumers’ devices such as photovoltaic systems, domestic batteries, systems and heating systems. Satisfying prosumers’ need to increase efficiency and self-consumption thanks to an award-winning energy management system, the company integrates flexibility into International electrical grids in order to offer innovative and new business models.

For more information: www.tiko.ch

As a global specialist in energy management with operations in more than 100 countries, Schneider Electric offers integrated solutions across multiple market segments, including leadership positions in Utilities & Infrastructures, Industries & Machine manufacturers, Non-residential buildings, Data centers & Networks, and in Residential. Focused on making energy safe, reliable, efficient, productive and green, the Group’s 110,000 plus employees achieved sales of 19.6 billion euros in 2010, through an active commitment to help individuals and organizations make the most of their energy.

For more information: www.schneider-electric.com

Entra agregación y flexibilidad is an Spanish Association that bring together all relevant energy players who aim to make a fair and complete participation of Distributed Energy Resources in the different energy markets to provide flexibility to the system. The association participates in the Spanish legislative process, gathers market intelligence for its members and acts as an influential voice according to the interests of its members.

For more information: www.entra-coalicion.com/

Enel is Italy’s largest power company, and Europe’s second listed utility by installed capacity. It is an integrated player which produces, distributes and sells electricity and gas. The Enel Group has a presence in 40 countries over 4 continents, has around 95,000 MW of net installed capacity and sells power and gas to more than 61 million customers.

For more information: www.enel.com

EDF Group is the leading player in the European energy industry, present in all areas of the electricity value chain, from generation to trading, and increasingly active in the gas chain in Europe. Leader in the French electricity market, the Group also has solid positions in the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. In the electricity sector, it has the premier generation fleet and customer portfolio in Europe and operates in strategically targeted areas in the rest of the world. The Group is also the leading network operator in Europe, giving a sound business model, equally balanced between regulated activities and those open to competition. The vocation of EDF R&D is to contribute to improving performance among EDF Group operating units and to identify and prepare new growth drivers for the medium and long terms.

For more information: www.edf.fr

REstore is a leading European Demand Response aggregator, specialized in automated DR. The company was founded in 2010 by Pieter-Jan Mermans and Jan-Willem Rombouts. The team has grown significantly between 2010 and 2013, to serve clients in the UK and in Belgium. Flexpond is its proprietary, patented technology platform, developed to turn DR into a virtual open cycle gas turbine. It currently offers balancing capacity to Elia, EDF and National Grid. The company successfully raised more than € 4 million venture capital in series A and B capital rounds. REstrore shareholders include VC investors LRM, AXE Investments and Ark Angel Fund, along with entrepreneurs and industrial families.

For more information: www.restore.eu

Bundesverband Neue Energiewirtschaft e.V. (bne / Association of Energy Market Innovators) represents the interests of grid-independent energy suppliers and energy service companies in Germany. Unlike suppliers with a connected grid, our members are free of monopoly interests: They are committed to fair competition and a diverse energy market.

For turning the “Energy Transition” (Energiewende) into a success story, we need good ideas. Our member companies have plenty of those! Whether producers, suppliers or energy service providers, they are developing and implementing plentiful new and successful solutions for all areas of the energy sector. bne member companies provide electricity, natural gas and energy services to more than 7 Mio customers in Germany today.

For more information: www.bne-online.de

For more information: www.applia-europe.eu

The sonnen Group is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of smart energy storage systems and a pioneer of clean, decentralised and networked energy system technologies. As one of the fastest growing tech companies in Europe, sonnen has received numerous internationally recognized awards. With its virtual battery, which consists of digitally networked home storage systems, sonnen offers new and highly innovative energy services for network operators and customers. sonnen’s products are available in many countries and has offices located in Germany, Italy, Australia, the UK and the USA. Since March 2019 sonnen is a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell within its New Energies division.

For more information: www.sonnengroup.com/

Tesla was founded in 2003, with as original mission to accelerate the transition to sustainable transport, later widened to sustainable energy. Tesla designs, manufactures and markets all-electric vehicles together with solutions for renewable energy production and storage. We want to be a catalyst for larger and broader investments in clean energy options.
Since 2008 all Tesla vehicles are 100% electric, with a battery autonomy sufficient to completely replace conventional vehicles. Each generation of Tesla vehicles is one step further towards democratising electric cars as a genuine alternative to combustion vehicles – for short as well as long distance travelling. Starting with a few hundred copies of a first higher end vehicle (Roadster), they are now marketing a second generation of premium family vehicles (Model S and Model X) and moving towards the launch of their third, more affordable, mass-market generation of vehicle by the end of 2017 (Model 3). Early 2017, the global Tesla fleet had covered 6.5 billion fully-electric kilometres.

For more information: www.tesla.com

Wirepas is focused on providing the most reliable, optimized and scalable device connectivity to its customers. With our help customers can digitalize their current business processes and innovate for new disruptive models.

With Wirepas Connectivity there is no need for traditional repeaters, because every wireless device is a smart router of the network. The connected devices are the network – easy as that. In nature, things are communicating making autonomous decisions based on the protocol that is optimized to fulfill the need as efficiently as possible – nothing more, nothing less. This is also what Wirepas is all about.

For more information: www.wirepas.com

The ADE is the UK’s leading decentralised energy advocate, focused on creating a more cost effective, efficient and user-orientated energy system. The ADE has more than 100 members active across a range of technologies, and they include both the providers and the users of energy. Our members have particular expertise in combined heat and power, district heating networks and demand side energy services, including demand response.

For more information: www.theade.co.uk

The Flexiblepower Alliance Network (FAN), founded in 2013, brings together seven partners in energy flexibility. FAN to create a renewable energy future by promoting open-source standards for flexible energy demand, matching the variations in renewable energy, paving the way for a fully renewable energy future.

For this purpose, FAN has created open source protocols and steering flexibility examples, all designed to match variations in energy demand & supply:

– Energy Flexibility Interface (EFI), an open source protocol to steer flexible appliances

– EF-Pi, a practical unit capable of steering flexible appliances using EFI protocol

– The Powermatcher, a source for real-time matching of energy demand & supply.

These developments show the principle of flexibility steering for the renewable energy future. FAN wishes to work together with all interested partners in order to jointly develop general standards for flexibility steering in order to lower the cost of flexible energy solutions and promote wider application.

For more information: www.flexible-energy.eu

Next Kraftwerke is the operator of a large-scale Virtual Power Plant (VPP) and a certified power trader on various European energy exchanges (e.g. EPEX and EEX). After starting operations in 2009, the VPP now bundles around 8,000 medium- and small-scale power-producing and power-consuming units as well as energy storage units. It includes among others generators such as biogas, wind, and solar. By networking our clients’ units, we have created a sizeable digital platform of flexible power producers and consumers. To put it in a nutshell: We are a power plant operator without any power plants. We operate in all parts of Germany. Since 2014 Next Kraftwerke has set up its own VPP also in Austria, Belgium, France the Netherlands, Poland, Italy, and Switzerland. Additionally, Next Kraftwerke offers a VPP-as-a-service solution, NEMOCS, enabling third parties to build up their own Virtual Power Plant.

For more information: https://www.next-kraftwerke.com/

Regalgrid® is an Italian start-up based in Treviso that has developed a sustainable, advanced, and innovative energy distribution system. Through its patented hardware/software technology, the company has set up an innovative platform of real-time energy services, aggregation, and energy sharing that takes users into the era of Digital Energy. Thanks to the SNOCU (Smart NOde Control Unit), a bidirectional gateway that connects to the photovoltaic system devices with or without a storage system, the Regalgrid® platform transforms consumers into advanced prosumers and brings them into an Energy Community where it is possible to exchange energy, manage consumption directly, and establish a direct relationship with installers and energy providers. This aggregation of users can be managed by advanced service providers with a licensing agreement in line with the objectives that the EU has set down in terms of smart communities. Regalgrid® can offer its services both to communities of private prosumers and to utilities and network managers, through the supply of turnkey solutions.

For more information: www.regalgrid.com

Energy Pool is the energy manager allowing for optimization of energy flexibilities and complex systems (pool of end-user’s equipment, storage unit and onsite generation asset).

Energy Pool manages a portfolio of 6 GW of flexible load and distributed generation worldwide. Through our unique software platform, we connect, aggregate and optimize assets to deliver balancing and ancillary services. Backed by a 10-year experience, we provide Utilities and System Operators with proven expertise and technology for their own operations.

For more information: www.energy-pool.eu

DNV which resulted from the merger between DNV and GL now forms the world’s largest ship and offshore classification society, the leading technical advisor to the global oil and gas industry, and a leading expert for the energy value chain including renewables and energy efficiency. DNV  has also taken a position as one of the top three certification bodies in the world. Operating in more than 100 countries, its 16,000 professionals are dedicated to helping our customers make the world safer, smarter and greener. To the energy value chain DNV delivers world-renowned testing and advisory services including renewables and energy efficiency. Its expertise spans onshore and offshore wind power, solar, conventional generation, transmission and distribution, smart grids, and sustainable energy use, as well as energy markets and regulations. 3,000 energy experts support clients around the globe in delivering a safe, reliable, efficient, and sustainable energy supply.

For more information: https://www.dnv.com/

Cuculus GmbH develops, implements, operates and supports server-based Smart Metering and Smart Home software solutions based on the open and meter vendor independent ZONOS platform. The product portfolio includes Advanced Meter Management (AMM) and Meter Data Management (MDM) systems enabling clients to work with the smart meters and communication solutions of choice. Cuculus’ end-to-end solutions enable grid operators, energy suppliers, and other related parties to upgrade their operations and to be ready for the energy transition. Since its founding in 2007, the company has grown continuously and has implemented numerous projects in many countries.

For more information: www.cuculus.net

NODES is the independent marketplace for a sustainable energy future where grid owners, producers and consumers of energy can trade decentralised flexibility and energy.

NODES, as an independent market operator, is addressing key trends and challenges in the energy system such as increased share of renewable power production, decentralised generation and the rapid change of the customer behaviour.

NODES vision is to build Europe’s most customer-centric, integrated energy marketplace to unlock the value of local flexible power resources and support the drive to a sustainable, emission free future.

NODES mission is to facilitate optimal use of flexibility in the grid by offering an open, integrated marketplace to all flexibility provides and grid operators.

For more information: www.nodesmarket.com