KOSTAL Industrie Elektrik announces involvement in “Bidirectional Charging Management” research project

Here at Hagen-based KOSTAL Industrie Elektrik, we are pleased to announce our involvement in the “Bidirectional Charging Management” research project (known as BCM for short). At the heart of this project lies the joint development of technological solutions for making electric mobility more convenient and more cost-effective for users and reducing emissions.

Our involvement covers the development and provision of wall boxes – which we produce in-house. From early 2021, this bidirectional charging technology is to be tested under real conditions in 50 BMW i3 electric vehicles.

Bidirectional charging means charging in two directions, in other words, an electric vehicle connected to the wall box can receive electric energy but also feed it back into the power grid. Therefore, the fact that the battery in the electric vehicle is able to emit current makes it a mobile energy store.

Plenty of work is still needed before bidirectional charging can be scaled up to allow large numbers of electric vehicles to be integrated into the power grid: The legal framework and communication interfaces to stakeholders in the energy industry need to be clarified. Innovations in terms of charging hardware, charging management and vehicle technology are also needed. And all this will be developed as part of the BCM research project. Alongside KOSTAL Industrie Elektrik GmbH (development of charging hardware), other partners involved in the project include the BMW Group (consortium leader), power grid operator TenneT, distribution grid operator Bayernwerk Netz GmbH, (both: energy system services),  Forschungsstelle für Energiewirtschaft e.V. (German Research Centre for Energy Economics) and Forschungsgesellschaft für Energiewirtschaft mbH (both: energy system analysis), Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT; research into electricity market and grid repercussions) and the University of Passau (user research).

The project was unveiled at the international ATZ congress on “Grid Integration of Electric Mobility” in Mannheim in mid-November. The launch also included a presentation on bidirectional charging management and its regulatory framework.

The BCM research project will run for three years and is being funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy under the aegis of the German Aerospace Centre. The project aims to promote using renewable energy as extensively as possible and to improve security of energy supplies – which it is hoped will be achieved by fully linking up vehicles, charging infrastructure and power grids.