Project description
Solar power shifts electric cars into high gear
The more electric cars on the road, the bigger the need for new charging points. Existing technology based on grids for the provision of power has three shortcomings: limited capacity of the power grid operators, expected rise of prices and the fact that electric mobility is not carbon free. While solar photovoltaic energy could be the solution, the manufacturing of solar carports is expensive due to existing structures, technology and the use of heavy metals such as steel. The EU-funded e-port project proposes a pioneering system consisting of an integrated solar carport that can be installed anywhere. The new system is made of carbon fibre and aluminium. It also diminishes assembly costs, reduces installation time and energy costs.
Objective
Electric cars will grow at impressive rates until 2030. In this context big investments are being done in the installation of charging points. These only use power from the grid, which presents three key drawbacks: capacity expansions in the power grid operator are needed, expected increasing power prices will make driving expensive and electric mobility will not be carbon free. Meanwhile, solar photovoltaic has seen a great evolution in the past years where the price of panels has drastically decreased. This offers an opportunity to use solar energy for direct electric vehicle charging at low energy costs. However, solar carports have not been developed at industrial scale because it remains expensive due to engineering efforts to integrate the solar modules in the carport structure, labor to assemble and install the systems and the use of heavy materials like steel to support the structure. We have created e-port, the integrated EV solar carport made as a modular system that can be installed anywhere hence eliminating engineering efforts and allowing to industrialize its production, decreasing assembly cost (by 80%). Furthermore, we offer a plug and play system that drastically reduce installation time (from 10 days down to 1), reduces energy cost by 25% and at last, it is produced with carbon fibre and aluminium instead of heavy materials such as steal. This unique material combination leads to a superior performance at lowest possible weight (45% lower vs. similar solutions).
In the very dynamic market of electric vehicles (CAGR2018-2025 of 43.8%) that will reach €40 billion in 2025, we aim to create a very profitable project. With a total investment of €1.89 million, we expect to generate a R.O.I.2026 of 3.98 achieving payback in <3 years. We will achieve that by performing direct sales to large customers and will use a distribution network to reach more capillarity.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- social sciencessocial geographytransportelectric vehicles
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrypost-transition metals
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectrical engineeringpower engineeringelectric power transmission
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energysolar energyphotovoltaic
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
8682 HONIGSBERG
Austria
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.