The collaborative research project VIGIL (‘VehIcle to Grid Intelligent controL’) has successfully met its aim of building and trialling an off-vehicle communication and control platform that will encourage DNOs, building owners and EV/EV infrastructure owners to adopt V2G as part of future network solutions.
The VIGIL consortium consists of Aston University, ByteSnap Design, Grid Edge and Nortech Management. The group has successfully demonstrated at two sites on Aston University campus the capability of VIGIL to regulate EV charging/discharging with building energy dispatch alongside electrical network constraints.
Funded by the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) and the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), in partnership with Innovate UK, the VIGIL platform is UK’s first comprehensive communication and control platform for managing energy distribution preventing peak load problems which can risk overloading the energy distribution network.
During the project, bidirectional power flows between EVs, buildings and electric networks were monitored and controlled in real-time. Now, the VIGIL platform operates in full control of how, when and the rate at which EVs are charged/discharged with the simultaneous consideration of multiple constraints.
Dunstan Power, director of ByteSnap Design, said: “We believe that platforms like VIGIL are the future of energy management in tomorrow’s transport infrastructure based on electric vehicles. We already have our first commercial customers for the smart charger control platform we developed and see lots of potential to increase the capabilities of the VIGIL platform with our consortium partners.”