One of the most innovative aspects of the SPM is related to electric mobility. A cantilever roof, that can host a charging unit (CU) and two electrical vehicles that can be charged simultaneously, has been installed inside the University Campus. The electric vehicles of the University have Li-ion batteries, whose technology allows a long life-cycle, high performances, high efficiency and no toxic components. The benefits given from to the usage of electric vehicles are first of all environmental: in fact there is no emission of local atmospheric pollutants like NOx, SO2, CO and they do not produce noise pollution. Furthermore, operation costs are reduced thanks to the high efficiency of the electric engines and to the low cost of electric supply. The usage of electric vehicle is ideal for urban mobility and for short extra-urban trips (up to 200 km) allowed by the current battery capacities. In the next year 2017, the batteries of the electric cars could be used as support storages to the electric grid thanks to “vehicle to grid” (V2G) technology, that, if necessary (for example during electric load peaks), allows the batteries to inject electrical power into the grid. In this way, the user will be able to guarantee higher flexibility in grid managing to the distributor of electric energy.
The charging of electric vehicles is performed by a Charging Unit (CU), which is a device connected to the electrical grid that can deliver and measure electrical energy and communicate to the management systems of the charging infrastructure of the SPM. The charging processes of the batteries are integrated into the SPM and represent actual electrical loads monitored and controlled by DEMS (Decentralized Energy Management System). The CU allows two simultaneous charges, thanks to SCAME and Mennekes sockets. Both CU (by means of GSM technology) and DEMS communicate with the charges management system, the E-car Operation Center platform. This tool allows the management of both charging processes and charging infrastructure by means of diagnostic and geo-localization functionalities.
