Eaton’s work on a smart microgrid to support up to 350 EVs will demonstrate the benefits of photovoltaics and electric mobility

Within the microgrid, several modes of control and pricing will be explored, with the aim of demonstrating that vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology has the potential to relieve the Swiss electricity grid of high demand and thus remove or reduce reliance on fossil fuels. 

François Randin, General Manager of Eaton Green Motion, is based in Lausanne, Switzerland. He said: “Businesses are suffering from the steep energy price hikes and looking for some energy self-sufficiency. The demonstrator at Y-PARC, which is called SunnYparc, will show them an alternative. It will demonstrate how they can save money and become more energy resilient through intelligent EV charging infrastructure underpinned by renewables.” 

The other companies involved in SunnYparc are: Planair, for project management; Yverdon Energies for part of the photovoltaic installation, and the implementation and management of the microgrid and charging infrastructure; Smart Energy Link (SEL) for developing the intelligent control system; and Virtual Global Trading (VGT) for implementing a flexibility aggregation service and elaborating dynamic tariffs linked to the electricity market.

Eaton’s role will focus on the development and supply of high-performance AC and DC Eaton Green Motion charging stations, starting with the installation of 25 stations (five of them bi-directional) by the end of 2022, scaling rapidly thereafter. The project target is installation of photovoltaics to produce more than one GWh per year (1 million kWh) and the involvement of up to 350 EVs charging at various times each week from a total of 250 charging stations.

The microgrid will exploit the ‘diversity of use’ of the EVs that connect to SunnYparc over the course of each week to get the most benefit out of charging and discharging them. What this means in practice is that the algorithms controlling the microgrid will intelligently manage the flow of energy between the EVs, the photovoltaics, and the buildings to dispatch available energy to where it is needed, when it is needed, and make excess energy and energy storage capacity available to the grid, if required, for a fee (this is known as flexibility). 

When SunnYparc needs energy from the grid to support its own photovoltaic production, the microgrid can determine the least expensive time to buy and store it, although the ambition is to achieve a high degree of self-sufficiency by managing all available energy flows effectively. The benefit to the grid of this type of intelligent aggregation is that it relieves the network of the connection to many vehicles at a single location, as well as offering the flexibility equivalent of a large stationary battery in the batteries of all the EVs connected to chargers.

The Swiss regulatory framework is unique in Europe because it allows the privatization of parts of the electricity network into microgrids within which flexible electricity pricing is authorized. Flexibility identified during the SunnYparc project will be quantified, and pioneering pricing models will be developed, enabling the replication of this concept on an even larger and wider scale.

It is anticipated that the project will reveal helpful findings for other countries, too, as they develop new ways of managing the energy flexibility that will be needed to balance rapid decarbonization.

“Developing mechanisms to synchronize the electrification of end-markets with the decarbonization of power generation is a challenge for grid operators everywhere. As the number of EVs increases, it is easy to see how large volumes of parked EVs can provide the flexibility needed, hence the importance of this type of project,” concluded François Randin of Eaton.

SunnYparc is financially supported by the P+D programme of the Federal Office of Energy and by the canton of Vaud. The City of Yverdon-les-Bains, through Yverdon Energies, is the main investor in the microgrid and the charging infrastructure.

To learn more, go online at Buildings as a Grid.

About Eaton

Eaton is an intelligent power management company dedicated to improving the quality of life and protecting the environment for people everywhere. We are guided by our commitment to do business right, to operate sustainably and to help our customers manage power ─ today and well into the future. By capitalizing on the global growth trends of electrification and digitalization, we’re accelerating the planet’s transition to renewable energy, helping to solve the world’s most urgent power management challenges, and doing what’s best for our stakeholders and all of society.

Founded in 1911, Eaton has been listed on the NYSE for nearly a century. We reported revenues of $19.6 billion in 2021 and serve customers in more than 170 countries. For more information, visit www.eaton.com. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About SunnYparc

The SunnYparc project is a Swiss pilot project involving 5 Swiss companies and supported by the Swiss federal office of energy and Vaud canton. It aims to explore the synergies between local renewable energy production and electric mobility. By the end of 2025, 250 charging stations for electric vehicles will be implemented on the Y-PARC site in Yverdon-les-Bains, and connected through an intelligent microgrid to local industrial consumers and a large photovoltaic production. The aim is to demonstrate that intelligent charging of these vehicles – in particular through vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology – has the potential to relieve the pressure on the Swiss electricity grid.

Media contacts:
Vera Grishchenko
PR Manager, Eaton EMEA
E: VeraGrishchenko@eaton.com
T: +44 7583 090560