Vehicle to Grid for Equitable Zero-Emission Transitions in positive energy districts.
V2G-QUESTS advances sustainable urban mobility by integrating electric vehicles with the grid to optimize renewable energy use and reduce carbon emissions.
Exploring societal engagement, V2G-QUESTS addresses behavioral insights to drive the adoption of V2G technologies, making sustainable mobility accessible and attractive to all.
Enhancing grid resilience, V2G-QUESTS enables electric vehicles to balance energy supply and demand, ensuring reliable power in fluctuating renewable energy scenarios.
The V2G-QUESTS project aims to provide comprehensive guidelines for the adoption of Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology within urban Positive Energy Districts (PEDs), ensuring equitable access to clean energy transitions. It examines the potential of electric vehicles (EVs) as dynamic energy storage solutions that can balance the grid and support the integration of renewable energy sources.
Through interdisciplinary collaboration, the project seeks to overcome technical, regulatory, and social barriers, fostering sustainable urban mobility and energy systems that are inclusive and beneficial across all societal groups. This project aims to improve the technical understanding of V2G applications but also to provide policy frameworks and business models that can be scaled across different urban contexts to achieve widespread zero-emission transitions.
V2G-QUESTS aims to promote inclusivity and equity in adopting battery EVs with V2G, preventing zero-emission mobility from being affluent-exclusive. It informs stakeholders about barriers and opportunities, supporting informed decision-making for broad participation in zero-emission transport.
A critical impact of the project is the encouragement of profitable business models for EV-V2G vehicles and services. These models are vital for integrating decentralized energy markets based on renewable energy with the grid, thereby enhancing grid stability and reducing local blackouts.
A long-term goal of V2G-QUESTS is to achieve zero GHG emissions from private and shared cars in Positive Energy Districts (PEDs). This requires households to adopt zero-emission vehicles and transport services, including EV-V2G.
V2G-QUESTS employs a research-oriented, multidisciplinary approach to guide Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology into the fabric of urban Positive Energy Districts (PEDs), prioritizing inclusivity and environmental resilience while taking relevant stakeholders into account. Central to its strategy is the utilization of electric vehicles (EVs) as collective energy storage units to stabilize local power networks against intermittent energy supply challenges and the management of sustainable yet intermittent energy sources for PEDs. By engaging a blend of engineering, social sciences, geography, legal studies, and management, the project meticulously tailors its methodologies to enhance the integration of EVs into daily life, ensuring equitable access to electric mobility that is capable of supporting profitable business models.
Through detailed analysis of EV usage and regulatory landscapes, V2G-QUESTS identifies barriers to V2G adoption, proposing solutions to overcome them. Realistic simulations underpin the project’s policy and business model recommendations, coming to its head in the creation of actionable guidelines. These efforts aim to democratize V2G technology across diverse communities, setting a precedent for sustainable urban energy transitions.
To create specific guidelines on how to set up PEDs where V2G can have a pivotal role in balancing the grid, the impacts of V2G needs to be assessed on a district and regional scale. Therefore the WPs interchanges are fed into simulations and the projects methodology is fully applied to the three distinct neighbourhoods/districts in the pilot cities.
Utrecht is the fourth largest city in the Netherlands with approximately 362,000 inhabitants. V2G-Quests will focus on the neighborhood of Kanaleneiland, a subdistrict that was built in the 1960s as part of Utrecht’s rapid expansion scheme. In Kanaleneiland the post-war built environment ideals of a ‘functional city’ are still visible, with (mostly) 4-story apartment buildings and large green areas that separate spaces to live, work and recreate. Therefore, traffic space is currently a big problem for the 40,000 inhabitants of the district. In the year 2000, Kanaleneiland became nationally known as a ‘problem area’ almost all inhabitants have a low socio-economic status or are unemployed, and there is a high rate of criminal incidents. Recently, measures toward an inclusive energy transition are being developed. In 2023 the European IRIS Smart Cities project will end.
V2G-Quests will build upon this research and existing network and focus on the nexus between the energy and mobility transitions as part of becoming a PED, thereby providing
Tartu, Estonia’s second-largest city and primary university hub, features Annelinn as a significant case study. This largest district in Tartu, spanning 540 hectares, accommodates 30,000 residents in Soviet-era 5- and 9-story buildings with substandard energy efficiency. Annelinn struggles with parking due to increased car ownership, yet maintains strong public transit and shared mobility links to the city center.
Historically underinvested, Annelinn has become less desirable, housing a larger proportion of vulnerable groups, including a higher senior population (24% vs. the city’s 19%) and fewer high-level professionals (13% vs. 18%). The district aims to transform into a Positive Energy District (PED) aligned with Tartu’s “Energy and Climate Action Plan Tartu Energy 2030” and urban regeneration efforts.
This case study advances the city district to become a PED in compliance with the city’s Energy and Climate Action Plan “Tartu Energy 2030” and Annelinn’s urban regeneration program.
The V2G-Quests project has been developed with the participation of the following partners:
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