Longbridge, 19 March 2018. Award-winning electronics design consultancy ByteSnap Design and a consortium of partners (Aston University, Nortech Management and Grid Edge) have been awarded a two-year collaborative project VIGIL (Vehicle-to-Grid Intelligent Control) under a Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) competition, funded by the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) and the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
The VIGIL project is focussed on developing a new communication and control platform for Vehicle-to-Grid/Building (V2G/V2B) systems: an off-vehicle system that controls how, when and the rate at which electric vehicle batteries are charged/discharged with respect to local substation constraints and EV/building energy requirements.
ByteSnap Design will be developing a communications adaptor, leveraging its expertise in EV charge post design. The communications adaptor will ensure the flexibility and interoperability of the VIGIL platform with different manufacturer’s V2G charge-points. ByteSnap will also be creating a V2G mobile application which will be delivered together with an optimised building management system.
In January 2018, OLEV and BEIS announced that 21 projects (8 feasibility studies, 5 collaborative research and development projects, and 8 real-world v2g trial projects) were to receive funding of c£30m to develop the business proposition and core technology around V2Gm and demonstrate those with large-scale trials. The projects involve over 50 industrial partners and research organisations from both the Energy and Automotive sectors, marking the largest and most diverse activities on V2G in the world, and trialling more than 2700 vehicles across the UK.
The V2G projects represent a significant step towards the transition to a low-carbon transportation and a smart energy system. Enabling EVs to return energy to the Power Grid when parked and plugged for charging, will increase Grid resilience, allow for better exploitation of renewable sources and lower the cost of ownership for EV owners – leading to new business opportunities and clear advantages for EV users and energy consumers.
About ByteSnap Design (www.bytesnap.co.uk)
ByteSnap Design is a specialist in innovative embedded systems development, encompassing hardware and software design, with an international client list.
ISO 9001:2008 certified, ByteSnap Design is an NXP Approved Engineering Consultant and an ARM Connected Community Partner. The team’s experience ranges from electronic design through to BSP porting and mobile app development.
ByteSnap Design won 2016 Design Team of the Year and Consultancy of the Year in 2013 at the British Engineering Excellence Awards (BEEA). The team was ‘Highly Commended’ for design work on electric vehicle charging posts for the London 2012 Olympic Games at the BEEA 2012. ByteSnap Design also won ‘European Design Team of the Year’ 2011 in the Elektra awards.
The consultancy also has experience of electronic circuit design, microcontroller design, Linux and embedded software development, designing hardware products from wireless sensors to ruggedized tablets with multiple software projects such as developing Android BSPs through to video processing applications.
There’s more to discover about ByteSnap Design at www.bytesnap.co.uk
