Arnhem, the Netherlands, Freiburg, Germany and Aalborg, Denmark --- (METERING.COM) --- January 22, 2013 - A European consortium coordinated by DNV KEMA has begun the EU funded Novel E-Mobility Grid Model (NEMO) project to develop modeling and simulation tools for optimally integrating electrical vehicles (EVs) into electricity networks.

The number of EVs in Europe is rapidly rising, but there is concern over the existing electricity infrastructure’s capacity to accommodate the associated growth in electricity demand. As charging spots and stations connect to the existing grid, the NEMO project has been setup to support European grid operators and service providers in assessing the impact of EVs on the power grid, and to evaluate possible solutions such as grid extension or load management.

NEMO was commissioned by the EU's Electromobility+ initiative, which aims to create a sustainable framework for electromobility in Europe.

Other members of the project consortium include Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems,software and consultancy company EMD International, Jutland electricity provider RAH (Ringkøbing Amts Højspændings forsyninga.m.b.a), and district heating company RFVV (Ringkøbing Fjernvarme).

The consortium will develop a NEMO simulation and optimization tool suite based on the existing complementary simulation tools PLATOS, SimTOOL and energy PRO, which were developed by the respective NEMO partners DNV KEMA, Fraunhofer ISE and EMD. The simulation tools combine to address both market oriented and technical problems that may result from the predicted influx of EVs on the electricity grid, such as identifying grid constraints in the network or determining the optimal use of available electricity generators.

“Our three tools will be further extended and integrated into one single tool suite to assess the impact of a large volume of EVs on both the electricity network and energy markets in its entirety,” explained Dr Martijn Huibers, NEMO project coordinator at DNV KEMA. “The combined project team will be able to offer cooperative services that none of the partners could offer individually.”

The project team aims to enable the exchange of simulation data between the models of each tool. In order to achieve this, the NEMO tool suite will have to be designed specifically for interoperability in order to facilitate data exchange, and advanced versions of each of the partners’ existing tools will need to be developed to fit within this framework.

The interoperable simulation models within the NEMO framework will be applied and validated by three representative case studies in order to assess the key issues of integrating EVs into electricity networks.

The first use case will demonstrate the use of NEMO tools for power grid planning in terms of matching distributed generation (DG) and charging of EVs.The second use case will concentrate on applying the NEMO tool suite to fast charging scenarios and a number of adequate technical solutions.Finally, investigations will focus on the development of approaches to help power grid operators solve problems linked to ‘abnormal’ charging situations.