NICHE Australian electric vehicle (EV) outfit Energetique has announced a joint-venture project with Queensland’s Ergon Energy, and is in negotiation with a number of other power companies, to develop and test the integration of EVs with the electricity grid.

As a working group within the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) mulls the ramifications of mass-market plug-in hybrid and full-electric car launches from 2012, the fledgling independent Energetique – which has the Mazda2-based evMe EV on sale now – is forging alliances to assess a range of infrastructure issues, including the benefits and drawbacks of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) integration.

Energetique chief executive Phil Coop told GoAuto it was crucial that electricity companies were prepared for an influx of vehicles drawing on their networks, and understood how to manage the integration “because they’re the ones that are going to bear the brunt of providing the ‘fuel’ for these cars”.

He said that if integration was not well managed, EVs had the potential to exacerbate peak electricity demand, which could in turn force unforseen investments via network upgrades.

On the other hand, Dr Coop said EVs offered opportunities to mitigate peak demand, with car owners feeding electricity back to the grid from their vehicles – a bonus for the electricity utilities, as well as a means for motorists to reduce their running costs.

For that to occur, however, the vehicles will need to be compatible with so-called “smart grid” digital technology that utilities are beginning to roll out across the world, including in Australia.

“What they (the utilities) all want to do is to make sure that the electric vehicle industry comes up and has smart grid technology, which they can use in their grid filtering and their grid maintenance,” said Dr Coop.

“It would be ridiculous to put a whole stack of cars on the charge at a peak energy load time, because that would finish them off – it’d be like putting 20,000 new air-conditioning systems on a network that was already suffering.

“So the first issue is to mitigate the charging load.”

Using smart grid technology, electricity companies can control the flow of energy between the vehicle and grid, enabling the flow to be slowed, delayed or even reversed. The network managers will be able to determine the optimal charging time, and the charge itself might come in bursts.

“The really positive side is that that energy in the car is actually available to be put back on to the grid through V2G technology,” said Dr Coop. “In this way, the vehicle can deliver power when the utility requires it while still meeting the customers’ driving needs.”

The Energetique chief said this sort of collaboration between the consumer and power retailer would allow households to reduce their energy costs and provide a valuable tool for the electricity provider to manage the network. It could also see electricity supply costs come down.

“It sounds a bit blue sky, but the whole notion of community transport will change,” he said. “The car is going to be the next wave of technology to be integrated, just like the mobile phone and the palm pilot and the computer and the TV are all integrating – like converging technologies – the car has caught up with that now. And it has the added advantage of being able to provide energy for all this stuff as well.

“It also consumes a substantial bunch (of energy) in itself. People who use fossil fuel – petrol – are sort of hidden from the sheer volume of energy they put into their tank each day. Once you get back to electricity, you suddenly realise that the electric car has a budget that is similar or more to what is used for the house. But the whole thing is going to be very transparent.”

For ‘smart charging’ to occur at all, the vehicle must be equipped with software to interact with the smart grid when it is available. The evMe has it onboard, as does the recently launched plug-in version of Toyota’s Prius – dubbed Switch – developed by the University of Technology Sydney, which is conducting a V2G assessment program in collaboration with EnergyAustralia.

GoAuto understands that most of the forthcoming EVs, including now the Chevrolet Volt, will also be compatible.

However, Dr Coop said some car manufacturers were struggling with technology as they race to market with EVs.

“We are in dialogue with a few of them, and we’re finding that they’re not coping that well,” he said. “It’s not entirely their fault – they are very large bureaucracies that manage to manufacture a car with a global logistics network so that you and I can buy one for $14,990 or something, which is a huge achievement.

“But I think that they are still struggling with technology – they still need to prove the technology. Once they start going into production, they don’t want anything to start going wrong when they’ve got 100,000 vehicles in the marketplace.

“There’s a lot of issues that haven’t been resolved yet, and a lot of standards that haven’t been set. And we’re right in the middle of all this.”

Ergon Energy acting general manager of corporate development Glenn Walden said distributed energy would be one of the key responses to the challenges the company faces in delivering services to customers in the future.

“Energy management systems and energy storage in particular will feature prominently in future supply solutions,” Mr Walden said. “It will also enable integration of greater levels of clean energy into the grid as renewable energy sources become more available.”

Ergon Energy is owned by the Queensland government and services more than 650,000 residential and business customers across 97 per cent of the state – virtually all areas outside Brisbane. Energetique is based in Armidale, NSW, and builds the $70,000 evMe to order. It sold its first example in April, and has expressions of interest from more than 100 other customers.

As GoAuto reported in June, Energetique has also signed a preliminary agreement with German automotive engineering service provider RLE International to develop and market the evMe platform in Europe.

The Energetique-Ergon alliance follows an announcement from infrastructure provider Better Place last week that it will work with electricity retailer ActewAGL to establish an EV recharging network – which will include smart grid technology – in Canberra in 2012, ahead of a rollout in other states and territories.

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Representatives from Energetique and Ergon Energy joined with Mr Garrett to open the event and test drive Energetique’s evMe, which featured at the event in conjunction with Ergon Energy’s Smart Grid technology.

Led by Ergon Energy, the Townsville Solar Cities program aims to better understand the benefits and barriers to solar technology uptake. Information gathered from the project will be analysed to see how different members of a community can best reduce energy consumption, and how governments, industries and individuals can support wise energy usage.

Townsville is one of only seven cities to be part of the Australian Governments $94 million Solar Cities program and Energetique has been working closely with Ergon Energy to develop a grid interactive platform that manages the transfer of energy between the grid and the vehicle battery.

The Energetique Vehicle to Grid (V2G) platform is also Smart Grid enabled. This will allow customers to specify their energy requirements for driving and the additional energy capacity of the battery that can be utilised by the utility. In this way the vehicle can deliver power when the utility requires it while still meeting the customer’s driving needs.

Mr Garrett said it was encouraging to see the substantial advances made by Ergon Energy and the significant reductions in energy consumption already achieved as a result of the Solar City project in Townsville.

The Solar Cities program was developed by the Australian Government to bring industry, business, governments and communities together to rethink the way they produce, use and save energy. The seven Solar Cities include Adelaide, Alice Springs, Blacktown, Central Victoria, Moreland, Perth and Townsville.

Energetique and Ergon Energy have announced a joint project to develop and test the integration of electric vehicles with the electricity grid.

The Grid Intelligent Electric Vehicle project will demonstrate Smart Charge and Vehicle to Grid (V2G) capabilities and integration with energy management systems – essential work in assessing the benefits and drawbacks of vehicle-grid integration.

While Grid Intelligent Electric Vehicles and Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles are expected to have increasing market appeal, smart integration with the network is crucial.

If not managed well, they have the potential to exacerbate peak electricity demand causing costly extra network investment if not managed well. However if managed well they offer opportunities to mitigate peak demand by customers feeding electricity back into the grid from their cars – a distributed energy concept called Vehicle to Grid.

As a result of the trial, Ergon Energy will evaluate the impact of electric vehicles charging from the grid and control of energy flow between the vehicle and the grid.

During peak load periods, the flow of energy can be delayed, slowed or reversed to manage peak demand and provide benefits to the vehicle user and the network.

Energetique spokesperson Dr Phil Coop, said to enable this, Energetique would develop a platform that manages the transfer of energy between the grid and the vehicle battery.

“The Energetique Grid Intelligent Electric Vehicle will enable Smart Charge whereby vehicle users will specify their energy requirements for driving and Vehicle to Grid where they will specify the additional energy capacity of the battery can be utilised by the network. In this way the vehicle can deliver power when the utility requires it while still meeting the customers driving needs,” Dr Coop said.

“By collaboratively managing the vehicle batteries, customers will be able to reduce their energy costs and electric vehicles can become a valuable tool for network management and reduce electricity supply costs.”

Ergon Energy Acting General Manager Corporate Development Glenn Walden said distributed energy would be one of the key responses to the challenges Ergon Energy faces in delivering services to its customers in the future.

“Energy management systems and energy storage in particular will feature prominently in future supply solutions,” Mr Walden said.

“It will also enable integration of greater levels of clean energy into the grid as renewable energy sources become more available.”

Backgrounder

Energetique specialises in the design and development of electric vehicles and energy management systems and has spent the past 4 years in research and development of the 100% electric vehicle evMe. The vehicle’s power electronics and battery technology deliver:

• Extended Range 200km
• Maximum Speed 150km
• Power Acceleration 0-100km in under 10 seconds
• Motor Efficiency up to 97%
• Full Digital Control
• Zero Vehicle Emissions

Energetique have recently partnered with RLE International, a Global Automotive Engineering group based in Germany to develop an electric vehicle pilot in Europe.

www.evme.com.au
www.rle.de

Media Contact:
Emily Sullivan
Ph: (02) 6772 7113
emily.sullivan@energetique.com.au

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Ergon Solar City

Peter Garrett test drive
“I love it!”

07/10/2009

BBC By Any Means 2

Charly Boorman test drive “I’m so impressed by this car”

27/09/2009

Top Gear Australia

“Yet another genius idea born in an Aussie shed”

1/07/2009

More Media

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Top Gear Australia (magazine)
Photos: Thomas Wieleki
Andrew Chesterton
July 1, 2009

Cars will become plug-in. It won’t be fuel, it won’t be gas. It will be electric.
How a cattle farmer from Armidale is saving the world, one car at a time.

Phil Coop is going to save the world. Not in some namby-pamby way, like enschewing plastic bags or not eating whale burgers. Nor in some flashy celebrity fashion, like hosting a turgid telethon or kidnapping an African kid, or two.

Nope, Phil Coop is literally going to save the planet, which, when you think about it is a pretty decent claim to fame for a 50 year old cattle farmer from Armidale in rural NSW. Why? Phil builds electric cars, and pretty bloody good ones at that. But we’ll touch on that in a moment.

Firstly, how does a regular country boy make the jump from cows to conduction? It all started a few years back, when the price of a litre of petrol was roughly comparable to the cost of a functioning kidney on the body bits-black market. Phil, like most of us, got sick of being screwed at the pump. And he decided to do something about it.

But while most of us where busy waiting for some big car firm to pump out an affordable, environmentally friendly option that doesn’t make us what to stick our heads in a medical waste bin, (sorry Toyota), Phil took a distinctly country approach; he decided to solve the problem himself.
So he sourced an old ute, powered by dozens of lead acid batteries, to use for short trips and to get around his property. Sadly, the ute had less grunt than your average calculator and needed constant recharging, but Phil wasn’t deterred. He set out to make it better.

“The last time fuel prices were up, we bought an old battery powers Suzuki Mightly Boy,” he says. “If you were only going to travel short distances , it would do it; very badly, but it would do it. We knew then that there was something in this. And that we could make it better. So I organised a team to take around the world with me to look at the best technology available. And when we came back, we decided that this idea could be a goer.”

Five years, more international research tours and $2.5 million of his own cash later, the evMe was born. Based on the Mazda 2 shell - though the technology will fit into pretty much anything you care to name - the evMe has 96 lithium-polymer batteries stored under the back seat, each one as thin as a pizza tra like device you can see Phil holding in our photos. It takes 10 hours to charge and, fully juiced, will travel about 200km.

The electric motor generates 89kW - 123 more than the standard Mazda 2 - and it will sprint to 100km/h in 10 seconds when tuned for range over power. With a few quick turns of a spanner - or what ever the hell you use on an electric engine - that time falls to around under 6 seconds. That’s Golf R32 territory.

But even without the turning, this is a handy little car. One of the electric propulsion’s key advantages is that you can access all of the motors torque instantly, and 220Nm is plently to snap you smartly away from rest. Despite the 200kg of extra weight from all those batteries, the evMe still feels nimble and light on its feet. And because the gear box has only two choices, forwards and backwards, there is no time spent hanging around waiting for those old-fashioned gear changes.

So the car is a success then, but surely there were times when Phil, or at least his family, questioned his decision to sink $2 million into a concept that for years was met with sniggers by his neighbours. “People believe cars will become plug in,” he says. “It won’t be fuel, it won’t be gas. It will be electric. And I agree.

“People are convinced that electricity is the path of forward innovation for the world of motoring. And batteries are going to be the fundamental technology we use.”

Think of the evMe as the United Nations of cars, with bits bought all over the world; the shell is from Japan, the batteris are shiped from South Korea, the motor an electrics are built in Switzerland, while the battery management system is flown in from Poland. But technology is like a politician’s promises; it’s forever changing. And even as Phil puts the finishing touches on the first of his fleet of cars, new and better products are becoming available.

“This is the finest technology of its kind in the world,” he says. Put we’ve still got some problems. We’re now looking at a new battery management system out of Germany.”

So what of our bold claim that Phil and his team will save the planet? That was no hyperbole, and this is no backyard operation. After five years of hard graft, Phil company, Energetique is currently ploughing through a backlog of about 100 orders for conversions - including Fiestas, VWs and even a Lotus Elise - while Phil and his team have just returned from a trip to Europe where they met with manufacturing arms of major car firms, including Ford.

Not bad for a boy from Armidale huh? Actually, while we’re on the topic, why the bloody hell is the firm still based in Armidale? Surely Sydney or Melbourne would be easier?
“I’m just a grazier” we run a cattle property,” he says. “I have an intrest in technology but I am not necessarily qualified. But I enjoy bringing the right people together.”
“It makes no sence to have this project in Armidale, but we love the regional lifestyle. It probably cost us between 40 and 60 per cent in extra transport costs on every product. But we’re comitted to the region. Regional areas have to do something, or they’re just going to disappear. And innovationcan happen here. It isn’t easy, but I hope regional areas will have their own heroes who can bring innovation forward.”

Phil, if you were any more of a hero, you would need a cape. More power to you.

Press Release
Cologne, 2nd June 2009

RLE INTERNATIONAL (Germany) & ENERGETIQUE (Australia) sign MOU to cooperate in the development of electrical drive systems. The partnership is aimed at generating Electric Vehicles for a broad range of mobility applications.

RLE INTERNATIONAL with its extensive experience in vehicle development and drive-train engineering together with ENERGETIQUE, an Australian company specialising in the design and development of technology for electric vehicles and energy management, have entered into a collaboration to develop an adaptable, cost effective platform for an electric vehicle.

The partnership will apply the concept (successfully demonstrated in Energetique’s evMe project) of modifying existing car models to electric drive, for delivery to a broad customer base. The goal is to provide customers with tailored solutions, for limited volume fleets at an affordable cost.

RLE INTERNATIONAL is a global leader in engineering services to the Automotive Industry with core competences in body engineering, drive-train and electronics. Under its RLE nova division, the company develops and applies leading edge technologies, with the aim of making innovative concepts available for public use. The E-Vehicle is one of the projects located under the RLE nova umbrella.

ENERGETIQUE is an Australian company that specialises in the design, integration and commercialisation of technologies relating to software, power electronics and the supporting infrastructure for hybrid and electric vehicles. Energetique develops custom solutions for its customers, concentrating primarily on the energy and transport sectors.

The intention of the two companies is to focus primarily on the European market. The collaboration promises to deliver customer-focused solutions within affordable cost and competitive time frames.

For more information please contact:
Antje Schumacher
presse@rle.de ; +49 (0) 221 / 8886 - 514

Australian companies are filling the gap left open by car-makers and their slowmoving introduction of electric vehicles.While Mitsubishi is aiming to bring its all-electric i-MiEV to Australia as early as next year, the Japanese giant is yet to confirm the move, and although Nissan has committed to bringing an electric-only model to Australia, it will not arrive before 2012 – the same year Holden has committed to importing the plug-in Volt hybrid. Meanwhile, a wide range of small operations across Australia are taking up the electric vehicle (EV) slack and offering to convert existing petrol or diesel cars into green electric models.

Right now, you can drive a brand-new Mazda2 or Hyundai Getzwith electric drive, or even have an existing used vehicle switched over. This strong EV drive is happening at the same time as a boom in electric scooters and bicycles with electric motors as city commuters look for green and cheap transport.
When it comes to the electric car industry, some of the organisations trying their hand at the new technology are backyard outfits doing the odd conversion, while a handful of operations stand out as planning serious production levels. Two EV operations of particular note are Energetique in Armidale, New South Wales, and Blade Electric Vehicles in Castlemaine, Victoria. Both are at different stages of development, with Energetique just delivering its first vehicle, while Blade has sold 18 cars including exports to New Zealand.

Both take existing donor vehicles and convert them to run on electric drive. Given the nature of the emerging technology and the fact that so much time must be spent on the electrification of each vehicle, the finished cars are significantly more expensive than the donor models. The Energetique evMe, which is based on the Mazda2, costs $70,000, while the Hyundai Getz-based Blade costs $42,000.
The cars use different technology, which helps explain the price difference, but neither car comes cheap. Both companies are confident that the price can be reduced as the technology matures and volumes increase, but what happens when the big brands arrive with factory-backed electric vehicles?
Energetique CEO Dr Phillip Coop told GoAuto that it would take some time before the major car-makers begin selling EVs, and expressed doubt that the first models could be here as early as next year.
“I have heard that for a long time,” he said. “I think it will be five to 10 years before we see production EVs in Australia.” Ross Blade, the man behind Blade Electric Vehicles, believes his operation can survive direct competition with the big car-makers because his vehicle will be more affordable.

He says that despite media speculation, cars such as the Mitsubishi i-MiEV will likely cost around $50,000. Mr Blade said his company was committed to reducing the price of its cars to $32,000, at which point he believes it would have mass-market appeal. “There is an ongoing market, but what
we have to do is get the price down from $42,000 to $32,000 and we are absolutely determined to do that,” he told GoAuto. “At $32,000 the market is considerable.” When asked how he would achieve that goal, Mr Blade laughed and then provided an answer that gave away no secrets. “The fact that we have got it down to $42,000 is a miracle as it is,” he said. Mr Blade also believes his Getz-based
EV will have a distinct advantage – size – that will give it a competitive advantage against the new breed of EVs from large manufacturers. “They will all be micros, far smaller than the Hyundai Getz, and they will mostly all be two-seaters,” he said.

Mr Blade said EV production is a completely different business model to traditional combustion-engine-powered vehicles, and even the increasing range of petrol-electric hybrids, which provide a significant income for servicing franchises given the maintenance needs of a combustion engine. Of course, EVs will still need to be serviced, but Mr Blade said the electric motor and battery pack rarely requires any work. Blade Electric Vehicles is already looking beyond Australian borders and has exported three electric vehicles to New Zealand. It plans to outsource the assembly process to a New Zealand-based company, which will be able to handle production of a large number of vehicles.

“We will build the first 20 or so this year and then we will then be licensing it out to a large manufacturing firm,” Mr Blade said. “We do small-range production, but large scale production gets licensed out.”
Dr Coop said Energetique initially plans to build 100 evMe cars and has already had more than 100 expressions of interest. “We have complete faith in the technology, it is a lovely vehicle and has great performance and a range of more than 200km,” he said. Dr Coop said Energetique would use realtime
data collection to find out how the cars are being used in order to better match it for consumer needs. “What we need is to get a lot more data out of it. What are the driving habits of people with electric cars? These are questions that have never been answered.” This information would also help Energetique find out whether it has overengineered the vehicle and whether there is a chance to reduce the price of the componentry. “That would help us work out whether we are over-doing it with the battery pack, can we get away with one that is half the size? (which would be considerably cheaper),” Dr Coop said.

The Energetique chief believes advanced EVs are being held back because of a technology bottleneck, as the leading organisations are not set-up for large-scale production. “The technology we are using is still being hand-built,” he said. “We asked the company for a quote on 1000 vehicles and they said they had never thought of producing that many. “What has got to happen is someone like Ford has to pick this up and do the production themselves. The companies producing this technology are very small, it hasn’t moved into the area of large-scale manufacturing yet.” As is the case with most emerging technology, there are various types of battery technology with no clear indication of which type will be the most popular.

The Blade EV uses a lithium-ion phosphate battery pack from China, while the evMe uses lithium-polymer battery pack from South Korea. Both are generally seen as a better bet than lead-acid, nickel
cadmium and nickel-metal hydride batteries used in many hybrids, which can be bulky and also contain hazardous materials. Dr Coop says lithium-polymer batteries used in the evMe are non-toxic, more energy dense, take up less space and have a greater range than other batteries. They can also be hooked up to possible future Smart Grid technology being discussed by energy companies such as
Better Place.

The idea is that the EV would not only be able to draw energy from the grid, but the grid would be able to draw energy from it as well. South Korean car-maker Hyundai and its sub-brand Kia also see lithium-polymer batteries as the best bet, with Hyundai planning to introduce a hybrid Elantra with the technology in its home market this July. A Kia Forte (known as the Cerato in Australia) will also be launched in South Korea a month later using the same hybrid system. Interestingly, Hyundai claims its Elantra will be the first car in the world using lithiumpolymer batteries, overlooking the Australian evMe. It certainly will be the first large-scale production vehicle with the technology.

While the big auto makers promise only timelines for electric vehicles, tiny Armidale company Energetique has delivered - with some help.
Energetique’s evMe is a purely electric car built around a perkey Mazda 2 body using components sourced from around the world, all switched together with the help of home-grown software wizardry.
For $70,000, the cost Energetique is quoting for new deliveries of the evMe, owners get the pleasure of being at the vanguard of the electric vehicle revolution.
That means being at the wheel of a vehicle operating at up to 96 percent efficiency, compared to the 30pc efficiency of oil powered cars.

However, few people will pay $70,000 just to feel virtuous, and Energetique claims about 100 expressions of interest.
There’s more to the car than just efficiency. Fortunately, the evMe is a functional vehicle, one that loses some range and convenience on the original Mazda 2, but gains in other areas.
In the evMe, the Mazda’s 76 kilowatt, 137 Newton metre petrol engine has been replaced with an 89kW Swiss-made electric motor with 220 Nm of torque, hitched up to a bank of lithium-ion batteries that Energetique claims are good for 200 kilometres of useful, highway speed driving on each charge. Top speed is 130 kilometres an hour, although the car is speed limited.

Up to 180km/h is apparently possible, but hungry on the battery pack and illegal to boot. Unlike a petrol engine, the evMe’s Brusa motor has only one moving part - the spinning rotor - one gear, and no need for gear changes. motoring costs currently work out at two cents a kilometre, the company claims, with full recharge times varying from 15 hours from a standard 10 amp household plug to five hours from a specially-fitted dual 15 amp plug.

The technology allows for partial charging, so owners can top-up if the car is in regular use. Energetique has used its software expertise to wire a few extra flourishes into the evMe. For instance, the car uses regenerative breaking algorithms to slow the vehicle at traffic lights while using this energy to recharge the batteries. There are plans to use this technology to allow the car to “learn” the habits of its driver in order to better capture breaking energy as recharge.
The company is also exploring the potential of the on-board GPS system, which opens up new possibilities for automatic management - for instance, speed limiting the vehicle in school zones during certain times of the day.

Behind the wheel, the evMe feels like a normal car, albeit one unnervingly quiet at low speeds. At high speeds, road and wind noise kicks in as surrogate feedback for the hum of the engine.
The torquey electric motor delivers a different motoring experience. No more kicking down a gear on hills or in the overtaking lane: just press the accelerator and the speedometer climbs without any fuss from under the hood. With the full 220Nm of torque available from zero revs, the evMe has been electronically governed for a smooth start; otherwise this placid little car could turn into a wheel-spinning beast at the traffic lights.
But without a signature exhaust note, tweaking the circuitry to achieve just that might be the only joy left to boy racers should electric vehicles come to dominate the roads.

Three-person Armidale company, Energetique, is about “energy mobility,” according to chief executive officer Phil Coop, and the ultimate embodiment of that is the company’s electric car, the evMe.
To the outsider, making a state-of-the-art electric car with specs that compare favourably with anything on the global market has been surprisingly simple.

In Energetique’s case it meant scouring the world for the best possible componentry, finding a suitable body to house it, and having the software knowledge to put it all together in the most effective way. There was a little more to it than that, Mr Coop explains, but as a principal it takes direct aim at the infrastructure-heavy automobile industry.

Electric vehicles have been around since the automobile was invented, and a flourishing hobbyist movement has existed since the oil crisis of the early 1970s. But the technology boom of the past 15 years, and the recent convergence of digital technologies into mutually useful applications, where a mobile phone can either drive your TV or serve as a TV itself, suddenly means only imagination will limit the role of the electric vehicle in an emissions-constrained society.

Thanks to the software talents of Energetique’s technical engineer, Norm Boessler, some early incarnations of that potential are already wired into Australia’s latest electric car.
For instance, a full diagnosis, servicing and upgrading of the evMe’s electrical and computer system can be done over the mobile phone network, without having to return the car to a garage.