Eaton deploying EV Charging Infrastructure for Buildings as part of European Demonstration
Ireland-based energy management firm Eaton will integrate eMobility charging infrastructure in some European cities as part of a wide-ranging EV demonstration.
The contract is part of a European Union research and innovation program to advance the electric vehicle value chain, according to the release. The €9.87 million ($10.41M U.S.) project will take four years and include more than two dozen company and university partners continent-wide in the FLOW consortium.
Eaton will employ its Buildings as a Grid program experience in developing the EV charging technologies at sites. The buildings will be located in various European cities, including demonstration projects in Prague, Barcelona, Rome and Copenhagen.
The research and innovation focus will extend across vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) capabilities that enable more system flexibility; DC-DC charging (direct current to direct current) that yields both power quality and control benefits; and further work on Eaton’s proprietary Buildings as a Grid Energy Management System that supports forecasting, optimization, and other essential services.
“As electric vehicles grow in popularity across Europe, a comprehensive range of fully integrated charging technologies is urgently needed to support mass deployment and enable valuable new services,” Stefan Costea, Eaton Research Labs regional technology manager, said in a statement. “As a key partner in the FLOW project, we’re thrilled to be developing optimal solutions for electric vehicle charging, V2G, V2X, and energy management.”
Eaton will demonstrate the technologies at three test labs, including Eaton’s own in Prague, the University College Dublin and in Barcelona. The demonstrations in Rome and Copenhagen also will involve the company’s energy management systems.
For the projects in Prague and Barcelona, Eaton will collaborate with fast charging solutions firm Heliox. Maynooth University will work with the company in Ireland.
Other partners will include RWTH Aachen University, Enel, Terna, Areti, Recerca Sul Sistema Energetico and the Technical University of Denmark.
“Our work on integrating charging infrastructure into buildings is supporting the rapid move to electric vehicles as part of the energy transition,” said Tim Darkes, Eaton’s president for corporate and electrical, EMEA. “We’re very proud to be investing heavily in the people, technologies and programs to accelerate the global drive towards a low-carbon future.”
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Eaton is known today as much for metering and energy management technologies, but the company started in the automobile industry and still derives about 13 percent of sales from the vehicle industry.
The company has lost money so far on its R&D commitment to eMobility, according to reports, but Eaton leaders are steadfast and believe a long-term revenue target of at last $2 billion is realistic by the end of the decade.
Electric vehicles have a 10 percent automobile market share in Europe, according to a Pew Research report last year. China’s eMobility share is around 6 percent, while it is less than two percent in the U.S.
Global automakers, however, are committing to overhauls of their product lines to EVs by the 2030s. GM, Ford, Toyota and Ferrari, among many others, are vowing to go all-electric in the coming decades.
The global transporation sector reportedly produced more than 7.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2020, according to Statistica. Passenger cars accounted for more than 40 percent of that sector, the report shows.
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(Rod Walton, senior editor for EnergyTech, is a 14-year veteran of covering the energy industry both as a newspaper and trade journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]).
