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Swiss Post e-scooters as a virtual power station
In a joint pilot project in Fribourg, several stakeholders are testing whether the batteries in Swiss Post’s e-scooters could help stabilize the electricity grid if a larger number of them are connected to it. The project also seeks to determine whether it is possible, in a best-case scenario, to earn money by charging and discharging the batteries using different electricity tariffs. To this end, a key innovation is being used in the project.
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Can Swiss Post’s e-scooters (DXP, DXC) help relieve pressure on and stabilize the Swiss electricity grid by using the scooter batteries as a virtual power station? And could Swiss Post save money in the long term by using variable tariffs to transfer electricity from these batteries to the grid? These two questions are the focus of a four-month pilot project in Fribourg conducted by Kyburz Switzerland AG in collaboration with Swiss Post and the Institute of Electrical Engineering at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU). The Federal Office of Energy’s (SFOE) pilot and demonstration programme (P+D) is providing financial support for the project. This specifically involves bidirectional charging – charging and discharging the batteries of electrically powered delivery vehicles. In the pilot project, the partners are testing an AC charging process. The alternating current is converted into direct current using on-board chargers in the vehicle. “This is the project’s key innovation. The on-board devices we’re using in this project are the first of their kind,” says Erik Wilhelm from Kyburz.
Virtual power station
As part of the project, the project team is working with the Fribourg-based grid operator Groupe-e to test whether the scooter batteries can be used together as a virtual power plant to support efficient grid operation. “As soon as the scooters arrive at the depot in the early afternoon, we calculate the charging and discharging profiles in accordance with the Groupe-e variable tariff in order to get the most out of the vehicles in supporting the electricity grid,” says Severin Nowak from HSLU. The only condition is that the batteries are fully charged again at 5 a.m. when the delivery rounds begin. It should be possible to use the delivery vehicles’ batteries to balance the network load.
Earning money thanks to variable tariffs
If Swiss Post charges its scooter batteries at night with a low electricity tariff and feeds the electricity back into the grid during the day at a high tariff, it may be able to earn money. The technical term for this difference based on dynamic electricity tariffs is arbitrage. Dynamic tariffs are not yet widely available, which is why feeding back into the system is not economically viable everywhere in Switzerland. In the Groupe-e network area, however, the use of bidirectional charging is already making it possible to achieve significant savings in consumption within the same area thanks to variable tariffs. “With the project in Fribourg, the participants want to find out whether the economies of scale from the large number of scooters would be large enough for Swiss Post to earn money with the help of arbitrage,” says Michael Graf, who represents Swiss Post in the project. The projections currently show added value of 2,500 francs per vehicle over its entire service life. The project in Fribourg, in collaboration with Groupe-e, aims to show whether this modelling can also stand up to the reality check. Greater price variability could make even higher returns possible in the future.
Alongside these economic questions, the project primarily focuses on the technical feasibility of bidirectional charging with alternating current (AC). Delivery operations will continue to run as usual throughout the entire four-month project, which means that the scooters must be ready for use on a daily basis.
Nine vehicles to be converted
Kyburz, which already presented vehicles with bidirectional charging technology in 2023, brought together the stakeholders required to realize the project. It converted a total of nine Swiss Post scooters to ensure that they were ready for testing the bidirectional charging system. No further installations were required in the depot. This is the first time that bidirectional charging has been tested with last-mile vehicles in Switzerland. For the duration of the test in Fribourg, Swiss Post will change to variable electricity tariffs in order to capitalize on the arbitrage effect. The vehicles are managed using the back-end system from Kyburz Switzerland AG and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts’s loading/discharging algorithms, which are directly coordinated with the applicable Groupe-e rates.
