CHAdeMO Association has held its third European Conference on February 19, 2003. This year, the event took place in Brussels, Belgium. More than seventy participants from sixteen European countries have joined the event, representing cross-sectorial membership of the organization, ranging from grid operator, automobile, charger manufacturer, government, to charging service operator active around the Europe.
Following an introductory speech from Mr. Hiroyuki Aoki of CHAdeMO Secretariat, Mr. Gills Bernard, the director of Electric Mobility of ERDF, has provided a key-note speech. Mr. Bernard has congratulated CHAdeMO, acknowledging the importance of fast charging and also confirming the importance of finding an efficient grid system for accommodating all the charging methods including fast chargers. Mr. Bernard has suggested that the smart charging shall be a way to meet the needs of customers, as well as sustainable business for e-mobility service provider, charging service operator, clearing house, distribution system operator and electricity supplier. CHAdeMO is the front-runner of V2H/V2G solution and has the flexibility and the willingness to co-exist with the electricity grid, facing the same challenge of zero emission as the transportation industry. In this context, CHAdeMO European members welcomed Mr. Bernard’s suggestion to work together.
This year’s conference has received especially many positive voices among participants, thanks to different presenters around Europe providing concrete deployment cases and their business experiences. In the first session, Mr. Jarmo Tuisk, the head of ELMO program at KredEx has shown how they have succeeded the launch of their national CHAdeMO fast charging network in speedy manner. Mr. Tuisk has emphasized the importance of finding a right location and their business plan.
Mr. Ole Alm brought his enthusiasm and confidence to make e-mobility a business sounding solution. They install CHAdeMO DC fast chargers in semi-public area such as super markets near highway. Along with AC Home Charging, Mr. Alm claimed that DC fast charging was a crucial infrastructure to relieve range anxiety. So far, forty five CHAdeMO fast chargers were installed by Clever in Denmark. Mr. Gøran Vollan, the CEO of EV Power, a company backed up by a grid operator in the Northern County in Norway, is already operating CHAdeMO fast chargers and they are to increase the deployment in 2013.
Mr. Markus Kramis of EVTEC has also introduced the EVite, the Swiss-wide fast charging network. The project has originated as a project among a consortium, and currently eighteen 20kw fast chargers are installed in the country. This year, the project shall decide the operator, and they are headed toward a real business.
In the following session of the conference, participants have discovered how CHAdeMO technology is in use by different vehicles including new PHEV and Airport bus. Mr. Uwe Likar from Mitsubishi Motors has unveiled their Outlander PHEV equipped with CHAdeMO fast charging capability. The Outlander PHEV is the first of PHEVs to have fast charging capability. Mr. António Guimarães of EFACEC has introduced the COBUS 2500 EL bus 100percent Electric bus produced with cooperation among Caetano bus, Efacec from Portugal and COBUS from Germany. According to Mr. Guimarães, some pre-series units have been tested in cities around Europe, including Wiesbaden and Offenbach, Germany, Schiphol Airport in Holland and Charles de Gaulle Airport in France.
CHAdeMO Association expects the recommendation on standard shall be in accordance to e-mobile infrastructure deployment already happening around Europe. The last session among cross-sectorial panelists have welcomed an initiative taken by European Commission in the preparation of the draft of the Directive of Clean Power for Transport (CPT), at the same time agreed the importance of not to stall the momentum for e-mobility that is already growing here in Europe. Hans Streng of ABB has shared his concern that the current draft may be misleading and it may risk to crush the market around e-mobility. Olivier Paturet of Nissan has claimed that the installation was the key and it is important from business point of view to maximize the revenue of each charging location. This is why a multi-standard charger is a sensible solution. Last year, it was not yet clear what the ‘backward compatibility’ mentioned in ACEA’s recommendation meant, but now charger manufacturers are coming up with the concrete answers in the form of real products.
