Challenge Bibendum - EcoMeter Connect: Supporting Green Driving, Facilitating a Greener Society

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Home DISCOVERING THE SOLUTIONS Energies & vehicles "EcoMeter Connect": Supporting Green Driving, Facilitating a Greener Society

"EcoMeter Connect": Supporting Green Driving, Facilitating a Greener Society

07-6-2010 by

Resume:
Billions could be saved by the global automotive industry by monitoring GHG emissions from ICE vehicles, by monitoring energy consumption patterns from Hybrids/ EVs and through conscious improvement of driving habits. Innovative solutions in these areas could be leveraged across various sectors of the society to reinforce a greener road transport sector.

Reducing emissions from Road Transport Sector: An integrated approach

Automobile manufacturers today are struggling to reduce the average CO2 emissions of new cars from 159 gm/km to 95 gm/kg in 2020, to fulfil the EU commission regulations. Not only, this is extremely challenging technologically, but also the resulting costs per car are likely to sum up to EUR 1,900 – equivalent to 130 to 150 EUR per ton of CO2 abated. This is almost 300-400% higher than the CO2 abatement costs in other industry sectors.

It is known that while 75% of the emissions are contributed during the usage of the vehicle, the industry currently ignores the fact that an ageing fleet produces 20-30% more emissions than a new vehicle. While several constraints are currently affect the growth of Hybrids/ EVs, which would otherwise help the industry achieve such targets, an enhanced focus on energy profiling & battery optimization is going to drive the future of this industry. An integrated approach addressing regulations, technological improvements and conscious driving would help achieve these goals.

The "EcoMeter Connect" proposition

Wipro Technologies has developed a solution, that helps to support various stakeholders involved in emission reduction efforts, with an innovative and inexpensive way of tackling the emission reductions, across all the types of cars: ICE, Hybrids & EVs. A GHG (Green House Gas) sensor placed in the exhaust pipe of an ICE/ Hybrid car could measure instantaneous data related to the emissions and the information could be integrated with other eco-driving parameters captured from the vehicle, and aesthetically displayed to the driver to provide feedback about driving behaviour. In case of an Electric Mode in Hybrids or Electric vehicles, the battery SOC (State of Charge) and SOH (State of Health) could be captured and displayed along with the driving pattern on the Instrument Cluster.

All this would guide the driver to improve driving, with a reference provided by the Eco-Index. This would not only help improve fuel efficiency and optimize the energy consumption from batteries, this would also serve as valuable data for various stakeholders to reinforce their commitment to emission reductions. This information hence could be transmitted through a Telematics gateway to a server, which could provide driving inputs to owners, Consumers & fleet users, emission trading opportunities to the OEMs, voluntary-based business opportunities to the Insurance Companies, Automotive Dealerships & Service Stations, and finally implementation of regulations, by various governmental agencies (see the context diagram thet explains the concept schematically above).

Measuring emissions, Energy consumptions and Conscious improvement of driving behaviour

With billions of dollars proposed to be invested in the carbon reduction & trading business in the next 5-10 years, Wipro Technologies proposes the use of a systematic method for emission data capture, transmission & storage to be used by various stakeholders further deriving business opportunities. The usage of a GHG sensor eliminates all data irregularity issues, which would otherwise be associated with an estimation based on the fuel consumption. Similarly, in the case of a battery-driven vehicle, a standard innovatively designed BMS (Battery Management System) ensures that the most optimum battery usage is enabled in the Li-Ion pack. While the emissions in ICE cars and energy control in Electric Cars are monitored with the help of GHG sensor and the BMS, the final responsibility rests with the driver on improving their driving behaviour.

To improve the pattern of driving, an Eco-Index has been derived, based on factors like GHG emissions, aggressive acceleration, sharp braking, over-speeding, optimal tyre pressure, engine idling, usage of air-conditioner, air drag etc. , which gets continuously monitored and displayed as a part of the Instrument Cluster. Along with the indicators on emissions and battery health, a unique, easy-to-comprehend colour coded image of the globe indicates when a person is driving in eco-mode, and when not. This image is also substantiated with information about where the driver is going wrong, by providing inputs related to his instantaneous drive data, and a trail of information from the start of the trip. The second picture above represents the "EcoMeter", which is an advanced form of the Instrument Cluster.

Battery Management System

With increased focus on Electric and Hybrid Electric vehicles, considerable capital costs are incurred for Battery Management Systems. Extending the battery life with new technologies has become the prime focus. Vehicles are driven with different configurations and combinations like motors and batteries with/without IC (Internal Combustion) engines; this has resulted in a paradigm shift the way we traditionally look at improving engine efficiency. Now improved efficiency of the vehicle electrical load and optimized utilization of battery energy in the vehicle will play a significant role in the future.

Solutions on auto-learn driving profile based on the traffic situation and maintaining the energy in the battery system to fulfil the expected demand can significantly reduce harsh usage on battery cells. Some of the enabling services include Remote Monitoring of battery and energy systems, Vehicle Smart Grid Technology (to assist driver in extending the range) and Smart Metering and Billing eco system. Solutions are designed keeping in mind the scalable and modular architecture requirements and are further adaptable to different market segments.

Reinforcing a Green Transport Sector: Extending benefits to the society

The information thus captured could be used to serve business purposes across various stakeholders of the society, which would in-turn reinforce a greener road transportation sector. The manufacturers could effectively use this information to trade emission credit certificates, capturing the actual information from real-time running of the cars. The trip details about the various driving parameters could be analytically evaluated and explained as a feedback to the consumer, who would be interested in improvements to save dollars not only by improving fuel efficiency, but probably also from personal carbon trading. Insurance Organizations could offer "Greensurance", a Green Insurance benefit to drivers, who drive more green, which could be an advanced version of "Pay-as-you-drive" insurance schemes. The Fleet Owners, would like to evaluate the fuel consumptions and driving habits within his drivers, to improve the overall profitability. They might as well be interested in trading with emission certificates, based on the information cumulated for the company.

The Automotive Dealers and various Service Centres could use this powerful information to set used car prices, arrive at extended warranty costs and AMCs. All these business cases would be based on the premise of voluntary participation of the owner. However, Governments and other regulatory authorities could plan to use such data to substantiate decision making on policy matters, without infringing into the privacy of an individual. Information related to the % of cars beyond a certain emission value, emission contouring of a city could be extremely interesting propositions. All this would result in one final goal, of helping to reduce the emissions and controlling energy consumption across the global road transport industry.

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Categories: Battery - Energy transformer or storage - Emissions - Energy - Connected mobility - Sustainable mobility - Urban mobility - Internal combustion engine - ICE vehicles - Vehicles - Electric vehicles - Hybrid vehicles

Keywords: battery - CO2 - electric - greenhouse gas - hybrid - hydrogen - - Transportation -

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