1. Opening
Mediaan and ICTLoket.nl organized the ‘Automotive, Energy and IT’ knowledge session on April 13th at the Chateau St. Gerlach, Valkenburg in the Netherlands.
Jan Stegink, Director Telecom and Utilities at Mediaan, opened the event and presented the agenda:
• 1. Opening by Jan Stegink
• 2. Introduction
a. Introduction Mediaan by Leon Beerendonk
b. Introduction ICTLoket.nl by Aaron Mulder
c. Introduction round participants
d. Introduction Martin Eurlings, Mayor of Valkenburg
• 3. Knowledge session, chaired by Martin Eurlings
• 4. Closing by Jan Stegink
Jan Stegink appreciated the input to this meeting from the participants, by providing statements with regard to ‘Automotive, Energy and IT’ from various professional backgrounds.These statements will drive the discussion and knowledge exchange during the meeting. All comments and opinions will be captured by best effort. A meeting report will be created (by this booklet) and send afterwards.
2. Introduction
Introduction Mediaan by Leon Beerendonk
Leon Beerendonk, director and founder of Mediaan Heerlen/Düsseldorf – one of the organizing parties – expressed his pleasure at welcoming all the guests to this Euregional meeting. Automotive, Energy and IT will undergo major changes, he noted. Consequently new IT challenges and transformations will arise driven by the new technology, business models and processes. A similar transition process began in the telecommunications industry two decades ago. The transition will touch multiple dimensions (technical, logistical, financial, commercial, social) and industries. Leon expressed his satisfaction that together the session’s participants represent a mix of science and industry, able to assess multiple aspects in the evolution of e-mobility and energy.
Introduction ICTLoket.nl by Aaron Mulder
Following the introduction Aaron Mulder, ICTLoket representative and also the meeting’s organizer, delivered a brief introduction to the ICTLoket Netherlands and Belgium. The ICTLoket is an internet portal offering free information to SMEs, thereby stimulating innovation. The ICTloket organizes network and knowledge exchange events every month.
Introduction Participants
After the short organizers’ introduction, the participants introduced themselves. The Euregional delegates represented various companies, research centers and universities.
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•Ir. Wim Aarts |
Energyhills |
Introduction Martin Eurlings (Mayor of Valkenburg)
The opening speech was delivered by Martin Eurlings, Mayor of Valkenburg and Chairman of the meeting. Tourism, he noted, was born in Valkenburg 125 years ago. Chateau St. Gerlach is an excellent location for creating new initiatives.
We all know that natural gas and oil is declining. Various new alternative energy systems are needed. The best way to predict the future is to create it together. Therefore it is a pleasure, he noted, to encounter passionate and proactive people exchanging knowledge to meet the future.
He also reminded the audience that Michelangelo presented a beautiful painting in the Sistine Chapel in Rome where you can almost see the spark as the fingers of God and Adam almost touch. Perhaps a nice detail is that the St. Gerlach church is called the Sistine Chapel of the North.
The focus of the meeting, he said, would be new means of use of energy, electronic vehicles and transformation with the help of IT.
3. Knowledge session
Statement by Rik de Doncker, RWTH University Aachen
To help e-cars achieve breakthrough point, the individual components should not only be developed for use in e-cars. More of a challenge is to develop robust and affordable overall systems.
Formerly vehicle range was a factor determining success. Today most cars drive less than 40 kilometers daily. For longer distances you need flexible battery options. Like smaller and safe 48-volt battery packs, comprising multiple units which can be engaged in parallel. The entire propulsion architecture can undergo major changes because of the electro motor; for example one e-motor per wheel is entirely conceivable.
To drive longer distances one just puts in an extra battery or uses a high-power pack. One could even use a small trailer carrying luggage and extra batteries or a fuel-based range extender.
Over the years traditional vehicles have been equipped with an increasing number of electrical components. The same components are found in a variety of cars, driven by an economy of scale. The electro motor might follow this evolution, ultimately creating cheap vehicles powered by sustainable energy.
Lithium is not a problem but its production possibilities are. There is plenty of lithium in the sea and there will always be enough of it. The only difficulty is the expense of exploring.
What needs to be launched is a recycling point for old batteries. Nowadays we just throw them away or just don’t reuse the lithium. In addition we need to make more use of DC converters which convert a direct current from one voltage level to another.
In Germany we can accommodate up to two million e-cars using the current grid. The official estimate for 2020 is one million e-cars in Germany.
At the moment there is no need to consider customer care and billing systems. Discussions about customer care and billing systems will slow down the entrance of e-cars.
Besides electric power, there are other technologies such as compressed air and hydrogen. But their development for mass use needs high investment in gas distribution systems, for example.
Electrical cars are relatively small and deliver excellent torque, thus there is real ‘Fahrvergnügen’, or driving pleasure.
Toyota built an entire new plant for their hybrid cars. One of the reasons was to avoid dissatisfaction among employees who used to build traditional cars. Big Japanese car companies work together with Tokyo Electric Power to create standards for e-mobility. Japanese companies put more focus on engineering than European and American companies. The Japanese are very quite effective in developing e-mobility.
In Europe there is extensive e-knowledge and there are companies producing lithium. We simply have to come together to achieve success. A first example is the joint effort between VW and EON. The USA lags far behind these developments in e-storage and will probably buy-in solutions.
Cost appears to be an issue but it is good to know that in Belgium for instance, traffic costs were measured. They totaled € 12 billion yearly of which € 2 billion is for the roads and the rest is related to health problems in one way or another (mental and physical).
The prediction is that, just as happened in the early years of the1900s when there were 20,000 cars and rich women were driving them, women will again be the early adaptors for e-cars. These cars are perfect for city use and are very convenient and easy to fuel at home. Today an increasing number of filling stations are remote or at the edge of cities. Increasingly women fuelling up a vehicle perceive a degree of risk.
George Huitema, TNO
Smart Grids cannot function well without electric vehicles as smart storage systems.
The energy world is in transition, a new kind of hybrid situation. Central and local connectors and charging points should be part of the ECO-Grid. Production, controlling and development are the main characteristics that we need to take into consideration. All these new systems should be part of the total chain, the total solution.
Energy consumers will become energy producers via solar panels, wind turbines, micro co-generators, etc. Consumers will become ‘prosumers’. Storage capacity can be found in a variety of places but also in e-vehicles. Grid areas, large as they are today, will become smaller. Urban areas will have their own grids and produce, store and sell energy together. This is the reason that balancing the grid becomes increasingly important. New ‘algorithms’ are necessary to control and balance the interaction between production, consuming and controlling units in power supply at a local and global level.
For driving in the urban areas, swapping batteries could be an option. But when you want to travel further other, perhaps traditional, fuel may be needed. There will be a mix of a variety of power capacity.
The lifetime of batteries is far longer than thought. They even can last up to 10 years. All that happens is that their storage capacity ultimately reduces by around 30%. To store energy costs energy.
Kees Oudendijk, RDW
Harmonization of automotive IT is a critical success factor for social acceptance.
Although it currently looks as though global harmonization of automotive IT will be a major problem, the past shows that it is possible. Not long ago trains had to stop at country borders because of different types of rails. That also took a while but at the end such obstacles were removed.
Of course there are problems to conquer. What is the commercial benefit to the inventing company if it has to share its ideas? On the other hand a traditional trade model can prevent these problems. Just buy supplies and ideas you don’t have yourselves. Consider hybrid cars. They have patented motors and they have tax advantages as opposed to traditional cars. Knowledge is protected here. But what if we want to have the hybrid as a standard? Then plain old trade might help.
Why do the Japanese lead at the moment? Long-term risks and investments are perhaps the main reason. And Toyota still is a family-owned company. Separate divisions and out-of-the-box thinking should motivate the teams to create improvements. Focus on standardizations should have priority.
Payments might be made using a variation on the public transport chip card used in the Netherlands and elsewhere. These payments may have to be made in different countries and to different companies. At the lowest levels there will be validation and easy use, and at the highest level there will be a clearing house arrangement. The traditional fuel tax system will ultimately change to a pay-per-use system (i.e. road pricing).
Regulation enforced by (environmental) health will help the use of e-vehicles in the cities.
Michael Preising, Car e.V.
E-mobility must be developed ‘Euregionally’: how would a driver from Limburg in the Netherlands fill up in Germany’s Aachen and vice versa, for example?
At the moment it is very expensive to develop a service point where one could recharge a battery. Charging for 5 hours at EUR 2.50 is quite challenging from an investment point of view.
One initial possibility might be recharging at standard tariffs in residential homes. This would obviate the need for charging points. Thereafter one could reward companies willing to install charging points in their premises.
Only 20% of cars are parked on private property. Owners might be early adoptors of electrical cars. Such property might host early users of electrical cars.
Cities typically do not have sufficient space for individuals to have their own private car parks. A form of multiuse parking meter might be installed in public parking areas, featuring both parking validation and charging point in one unit. Payment could occur just as it does today.
Arjen Jongepier, Delta
The energy transition requires a pro-active and value-chain-oriented approach. 
In the grid area a new strategic decision today will take many years of investment and installation time before any benefit can be derived from it. One smart grid development is to support e-mobility. The decision for this was taken years ago, while implementation will take until 2020 and beyond.
There is no such thing as a smart grid. You have to look at it from a perspective of the value chain. Transmission is one part of that chain and so are production and consumption. The IT involved in this process makes it smart.
Another possibility might be to build oversized networks so there will always be sufficient capacity to transport whatever degree of quantity.
Driven by Kyoto and by Dutch regulation, 20% of energy should be sustainable in 2020. Operators have to invest 10% of their revenue annually in the transition to the new energy world.
Joost Govaart, NedCar
The speed demonstrated in appointing the E-team has not (yet) contributed to the Dutch ambition of becoming a front-runner in E-mobility.
There are three main issues for the future of e-vehicles: car production, infrastructure and market development. Three ministries in the Netherlands (Economic Affairs, Transport, Finance) produced one approach to launch an organization that will push these three things forward: the E-team. This team should ensure that the Netherlands will become a guiding nation in Europe. It took an enormous amount of time simply to get the team going. There are plenty of possible participants but there is no coordination.
In the Netherlands we don’t need a home-grown e-vehicle, but we have the ability and the knowledge to build electrical components (like powered semiconductors) and battery plants. These plants in particular will provide an enormous boost to the e-industry. Other EU countries allocate greater budgets to stimulate the economy in this direction, but in the Netherlands we are experiencing never-ending discussions.
There is still the momentum to be at the front of this e-development. Even in the Euregio it is possible to start an e-industry. All the conditions are there. The investment would be somewhere around € 300 million to launch production of 50,000 e-cars a year. Few large investors are prepared to step up because of the lack of history. But with government help, smaller investors might be attracted. If we keep on discussing nothing will happen, and others will be way ahead of us. That is absolutely not necessary.
4. Closing
Jan Stegink closed the meeting by concluding that many initiatives are underway. Governance and common architectures/standards are however necessary to take the next step in the evolution of Automotive, Energy and IT. On behalf of Mediaan and the ICTLoket he thanked all the guests, and Martin Eurlings for chairing the discussion and knowledge exchange. The session closed with a modest dinner enabling further information exchange and networking.
Klik hier om de foto’s van Château St. Gerlach te bekijken.
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