Every electric car owner's green dream must be to drive off in the morning without having to worry about the time and place of the next charging. Jesper Boie Rasmussen, CEO of the company Nerve Smart Systems, has set out to make that dream come true.
"I'm absolutely convinced that we will accelerate the green transition. We've developed a technology that enables us to set up high-power chargers in many more places in Denmark without overloading the electricity grid. In fact, they are able to help the electricity grid when it's under pressure," he says.
The high-power charger solution, which is a combination of a high-power charger and a battery, provide charging of electric vehicles in record time without straining the electricity grid. Depending on the capacity of the car, the charging time typically corresponds to a coffee break. Meanwhile, the price is kept down through, for example, high-power charging with stored electricity from the battery when the electricity grid prices are high. Finally, the battery can act as a buffer for the existing electricity grid when the demand for renewable energy is higher than the production.
"The pressure on the electricity grid is growing because more and more of the conventional power plants are being replaced by wind turbines and solar cells. Wind and solar energy depends on the wind blowing and the sun shining, so when production drops, it is difficult to match the demand for electricity. The battery is brilliant at filling that gap," explains Jesper Boie Rasmussen.
He believes that supplementing with batteries can constitute an alternative to an otherwise costly upgrade of the existing electricity grid. While the charging station operator can make money by supplying renewable energy to the electricity grid from the batteries, society can save some of the DKK 110 billion that an upgrade of the electricity grid will cost, according to the latest analysis from Ramboll.
DTU tests have led to approval
The high-power charger from Nerve Smart Systems has not yet been rolled out on a large scale, but it has been fully developed, thoroughly tested, and supplied to the first customers in Denmark, including the energy company OK. Looking back, Jesper Boie Rasmussen would not have succeeded without help.
"I will be the first to admit that it has been a long journey. But we're now in a place where the product is good, and this is not least thanks to a number of joint projects we've had with DTU," he says.
For example, DTU has contributed with thorough testing of the solution in the University's experimental energy laboratory PowerLabDK. Here, the high-power charger battery has been connected to a model of the energy system, and, by testing the response of the battery to various electricity grid conditions, such as fluctuations in voltages and frequency, DTU's researchers have been able to identify faults and deficiencies.
"We've used our equipment and knowledge to perform all the tests necessary to obtain an approval to connect to the electricity grid and supply energy. In the end, Energinet, which owns the electricity grid in Denmark, was able to rubberstamp the solution and say yes, now you have the right to operate the battery system," says Mattia Marinelli, Head of Section and Associate Professor at DTU Wind.
