In the town of Odijk, near the city of Utrecht, a local initiative is active in the recently built, and still growing, neighborhood “Het Burgje”. A collaboration between the housing developers, the buyers of the houses and We Drive Solar has established three years of free subscription to the We Drive Solar (WDS) Vehicle-to-Grid e-car sharing scheme, for all citizens living in the neighborhood. This local initiative is one of the Use Cases in INCIT-EV with the goal to further develop the WDS bidirectional shared e-car proposition and software interoperability, and to research the socio-economic aspects of this offer in relation to a young neighborhood with an active local initiative.

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At the location, two public, bidirectional e-car charging stations have been installed and at the time of writing, three WDS shared e-cars are in operation. Following the growth of the neighborhood and actual demand, these numbers are expected to grow to 5 bidirectional charging stations and 5 e-cars.

In INCIT-EV, this Use Case extends the interoperability between the shared e-car reservation system, its users, and the smart / V2G charging operation of the e-cars. At this moment, the e-cars are smart charged, driven by the day-ahead electricity market prices. The plan is to add two new EV models into the V2G e-car sharing system. This includes the first V2G production e-car with V2G capabilities, the Hyundai IONIQ5, which is expected to be demonstrated in this Use Case by the end of 2022, thus complementing for V2G charging and discharging the ecosystem.

Already, the use of the shared e-cars and various technical and non-technical aspects are being monitored. This Use Case is expected to have high replication potential especially in the large segment of sustainable new housing districts.

Bart van der Ree