Members attend semi-annual SMART@CAR consortium review; microgrid progress underway

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Industry members attended the semi-annual SMART@CAR consortium review on June 3, 2014 at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR). Industries represented include automotive, electric utilities, and suppliers. They were joined by energy experts from The Ohio State University to review current and future research projects as well as to discuss current trends and related issues.

A highlight was the finalization and next step planning for researching and economic analysis of the utilization of automotive lithium ion batteries for other applications once finished with their primary automotive vocation.  In addition,  further progress was reported on the modeling and simulation of the DC microgrid unveiled in December 2013--a small scale version of a centralized electricity system--at CAR. The microgrid will utilize the solar panels on CAR's roof to collect and store energy in after-market automotive battery packs, which will then be used to power vehicles at CAR's seven charging stations.

Additional topics of the meeting included updates of on-going research projects. Principal investigators and graduate researchers discussed plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) forecasting for Ohio, economic analysis of lithium ion batteries, distribution effects of DC fast charging, and received an update on projects the consortium has with the National Science Foundation.

Rounding out the afternoon, guest speakers Cynthia Maves (Clean Fuels Ohio) and Ed Ungar (Taratec Corporation), spoke about Drive Electric Ohio’s Workplace Charging Survey results and United States’ PEV adoption, respectively.  The day’s activities concluded with a members-only roundtable discussion where future research directions are discussed.

About SMART@CAR
SMART@CAR is an industry driven research and development program focused on Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs) and intelligent charging. SMART@CAR is a program of Ohio State Center for Automotive Research that takes a multi-disciplinary systems approach to research problems related to the development, manufacturing, deployment, and application of plug-in electric vehicles. The SMART@CAR collaborative intends to merge academic research with the insights and experience of: automotive manufacturers and suppliers; battery manufacturers; electric utilities; and others. http://car.osu.edu/research/smartcar

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Categories: IndustryResearch