The AI-informed Holistic Electric Vehicles Integration Approaches for Distribution Grids project (AHEAD) officially kicked off at the beginning of June 2024, hosted by its coordinator, Politecnico di Milano. 

The four-year, 12.8M€ Horizon Europe project brings together 21 partners from 9 European countries and 5 associated partners from the entire EV value chain to create a simulation environment capable of predicting the most convenient locations to place EV charging stations while optimising both the usage of the power grid resources and that of the charging stations – in urban and rural areas. 

As the use of electric vehicles (EVs) continues to grow, urban and rural areas will require strategically placed charging stations to meet growing charging demands. The current infrastructure often falls short in optimising grid resources and managing the increased load efficiently. Without a coordinated approach, both consumers and grid operators face higher costs and potential disruptions.  

With the aim of enhancing the integration of EVs into the power grid, the AHEAD project will use advanced AI models to develop a tool that balances user accessibility and grid capacity, testing flexibility services at seven demonstration sites to focus on optimising both economic benefits and grid stability.  

“Flexibility in power systems is perceived as something complex, hard to achieve and based on decision-support systems. Since flexibility is considered something that largely pertains to the operational level, the role of flexibility in power system planning is something not investigated too much in research. AHEAD aims to fill this gap by demonstrating how flexibility can play a role also in the planning phase.” — Samuele Grillo, AHEAD Project Coordinator. 

The project will aim to create tools to quantify the impact of flexibility services on grid planning and optimising EVSEs placement process, facilitate the operation of the grid using novel EV load forecasting techniques and AI-powered forecasting tools for EV demand. 

Additionally, the quantification of flexibility potential from EV fleets (HDVs, vessels) will be proposed with new flexibility services. AHEAD will also facilitate the activation of EV flexibility services by creating an ad-hoc platform and contracting / pre-qualification procedures while improving charging efficiency and tackling cybersecurity of the charging infrastructure.