M2M technology empowers green e-mobility

By Holger Lenz, Director Business Development for Cinterion Wireless Modules

Electric vehicles offer a compelling option for environmentally sustainable travel and transportation and are fast becoming a regular part of daily life worldwide. However, electric vehicles require a totally new and smart infrastructure, which must be developed and implemented in the very near future in order to meet growing demand. Integrated wireless machine-to-machine communication is a crucial component to empowering “green” e-mobility.

“Wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) technology is a crucial enabling technology to support what will be a largely unmanned and widely distributed electric vehicle charging infrastructure.”
-Holger Lenz, Director Business Development

The Electric Vehicle Revolution

Unfortunately, worldwide road traffic is one of the largest contributors to global warming due to carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, nitrogen oxide (NO_X) emissions and an increase in the concentration of fine particulates in the atmosphere. Car manufacturers have recognized the promise electric vehicles offer in reducing air pollution and recently unveiled, at the 2009 International Motor Show in Frankfurt, a fleet of futuristic electric concept cars and prototypes which are scheduled to be on the road by 2012. To be truly effective at reducing CO₂ emission and the related greenhouse effect, these new vehicles will need to be charged at environmentally friendly or "green-powered" electric vehicle charging stations. Current battery technology requires frequent and time consuming refueling - charging can last up to several hours each incidence. And herein lies the challenge - electric travel will only be accepted and adopted if the daily impact on the driver is positive and the technology is easy, convenient and economical. Consumers must be able to recharge their vehicles at places they typically visit throughout the course of a day. For instance, a parking lot must become a smart charging station so drivers can park, plug in, and then work, shop, or enjoy dinner at a restaurant while their vehicle refuels.

In 2009, several European countries began national electric mobility initiatives to support their CO₂ reduction goals. Their governments have increased research and development investments to spur growth of the e-mobility market and to catapult Europe into a leading market position. The German government plans to spend 700 million Euro for several electric mobility projects in the coming years to achieve the first one million electric vehicles by 2020. France is targeting 2 million electric vehicles by 2020 and unveiled a 14-point plan, including investing 1.5 billion Euro to install a nationwide network of 1 million electric vehicle charging stations by 2015. 

An M2M Enabled Charging Station Infrastructure

Wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) technology is a crucial enabling technology to support what will be a largely unmanned and widely distributed electric vehicle charging infrastructure. It offers an easy and flexible way to connect individual charging stations to the station's control center. All charging stations, whether a single station at a restaurant or home or a cluster of stations in a parking lot or at a mall, need to communicate crucial data and commands back and forth to the control center. M2M communications enables remotely managed charging station tasks such as user authentication, credit card payment procedures, usage data communications and remote equipment monitoring and management. It can even detect abnormal behaviors and send alarms or discontinue service.

M2M charging stations are equally beneficial for the drivers who could use the technology to quickly locate the nearest charging station, view charging status via a smart phone app or receive SMS notification when the battery is full and the vehicle is ready for travel.

M2M Benefits for the Charging Station Ecosystem

The new "fuel" stations of the future will be mutually beneficial for consumers, shop keepers, restaurants and other charging station owners in the network and all value chain partners can take advantage of the power of M2M communication to improve business. Businesses can generate additional revenue stream by adding electric charging station services. And with integrated M2M communication, back-end processes such as billing and reporting are greatly simplified. For instance, at the end of a charging session, electricity meter readings can be automatically delivered to the control center and consumption data and pricing information is then immediately available to the customer online via a secure web access account or via a smart phone app. M2M-enabled billing is easily facilitated and managed with a variety of options - customers can pay after each recharge, weekly, monthly as part of the regular electricity bill, prepaid, or charges can even be partially covered via loyalty programs of shop, restaurant or charging station operators. And to jump start business during slow periods, merchants can offer free, value-added charging services with M2M generated SMS and location based messages alerting customers of special rates. In addition, charging station operators can use precise meter information generated by M2M to accurately track and make payments to the electric utility companies.

Integration in Smart Power Grids

Today, smart power grids are increasingly prominent and greatly ease burden on our environment. M2M technology enables easy integration and control of charging stations within the grid. In a smart power grid, all power generators, solar plants, wind mills and other power sources, are able to automatically exchange consumption and generation data with utility companies and power consumers including individual, industrial and enterprise energy consumers such as charging stations. When all end points are connected with two-way communications, the entire grid can be controlled more efficiently and specific areas can be temporally switched off or slowed down to accommodate the more immediate needs of other power consumers. Electric vehicle charging stations are the ideal flexible energy consumers and predestinated to act as such in a smart grid. For instance, if a vehicle is parked and connected to a charging station for several hours while the consumer enjoys a movie followed by dinner, the system could slow down or stop the charging process for several minutes. Drivers could opt-in to a smart grid charging program at a reduced rate that would potentially extend the time it takes to charge a vehicle. This type of program is a huge benefit to electricity utility companies who are no longer forced to generate additional electricity during peak consumption. Instead, utilities can shift the load by switching off power for consumption that is not time critical. And since less power is generated overall, with fewer fossil fuels being burned to produce it, M2M enabled smart grid applications such as these help to reduce CO₂ emission even further. With Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) processes, fully charged and still connected vehicles can also act as a temporary energy source for peak demand within the grid and can feed back part of the stored energy into the grid when needed.

Convenient Global M2M Communication

Wireless M2M-empowered vehicle charging stations provide users with the enormous benefits and features of a completely networked system, no matter where the station is located due to the immediate, easy and cost effective global connectivity. Wireless networks are available everywhere and GSM standards, from GPRS to EDGE up to 3G technologies like UMTS and HSPA, support an IP-based data connection to the Internet making them operable worldwide. Charging stations with integrated wireless M2M communication are easy to install and can be put in operation virtually anywhere. And with an integrated smart meter, charging station electricity consumption data is always available - all the operator needs to get started is a power cable. The charging station is immediately up and running and connected via wireless networks without the expensive and time consuming process of digging and laying communication cables to each charging station. And Cinterion Wireless Modules (www.cinterion.com), the worldwide leader in wireless communication modules for M2M applications, is leading the way by offering unprecedented global customer and engineering support along with the most innovative, high quality products in the market.