The role of the distribution system operator has been relegated to a specific stage in the electricity value chain, namely the management of distribution network infrastructure and associated metering activities. This business can be regarded as a mature business, with standardized procedures and very little scope for innovation. Despite this conventional view, recently, the smart grid concept has been presenting distribution system operators (DSOs) with new challenges as they transform their distribution networks into information technology-enhanced integrated platforms very similar to telecommunication networks. Enel Distribuzione has been a trailblazer in the development of network technologies, having already implemented a number of important applications before the term smart grid was conceived.

One of the most exciting challenges now facing the industry is the development of electric mobility (e-mobility), whose successful implementation could provide considerable benefits, ranging from a reduction in pollution agents to advantages for all the industries involved and equally important benefits for the customer.

Enel Distribuzione is keen to play a leading role in developing a recharging infrastructure for use by electric vehicle (EV) owners. Specifically, Enel Distribuzione wishes to develop an advanced infrastructure capable of maximizing quality of service while linking it to the distribution network. The focus is on the development of a business model to effectively support the e-mobility market and create business opportunities for both public and private operators. This is the only way for electric mobility to become a win-win business, capable of sustaining itself and generating value for all players.

Enel Distribuzione is about to launch an important pilot project in three Italian cities — Rome, Milan and Pisa — through the deployment of 500 charging points: 100 in private garages and 400 in public places. This new architecture will deliver innovative mobility services to owners of electric vehicles.

Communications Infrastructure

Enel Distribuzione is the largest DSO in Italy, distributing 82% of the total Italian electricity consumption and managing more than 85% of the Italian electricity distribution network that supplies some 32 million customers. Over the last decade, the utility has implemented a large number of innovative projects to improve excellence in typical DSO operations, and in the process, it has established international benchmarks.

Of these projects, the remote control and network automation project and the smart meter project have had the greatest impact on key performance indicators and enhanced excellence in operating processes. The utility pioneered both projects more than 10 years ago, leading the market in the design and development of an innovative infrastructure capable of achieving operational and economic efficiency targets. As a result of these projects, Enel Distribuzione has dramatically improved the key performance indicators. Over the last six years, the utility has reduced average operational costs per customer by more than 40% and average outage time per year by more than 60%.

These large-scale projects have allowed Enel Distribuzione to acquire unique experience in the design, development, deployment and management of an extensive remotely controlled infrastructure fully integrated into information and communication technology systems, which in operation support the typical DSO processes. Today, Enel Distribuzione is able to automatically and remotely manage more than 32 million smart meters, 2300 high-/medium-voltage substations and 100,000 medium-/low-voltage substations, limiting on-site interventions to a small number of exceptional instances.

These two projects leverage two different communication infrastructures that were developed independently to fit the differing performance requirements of each project, providing an extensive yet low-cost communication infrastructure for the smart meter project and a reliable, real-time infrastructure for substation remote control. By combining these two existing infrastructures, Enel Distribuzione has access to extensive, reliable, real-time communication infrastructure.

As a result of this unique know-how and experience, the utility stands at the forefront of current European projects to transform the electricity network into a smart grid. In the run-up to the mass introduction of renewable and distributed energy resources, e-mobility now offers a network management business opportunity.

Features of the e-Mobility Project

Enel Distribuzione is currently designing a solution to allow EV recharging by breaking down the barriers that, until now, have hindered development of the e-mobility market. The utility is developing a more suitable business model and a more versatile, cost-effective infrastructure. Following the less-than-satisfactory results of experiments undertaken thus far in various Italian cities, Enel Distribuzione is now promoting a business model in which customers pay for recharging based on a dedicated rate established with the customer's preferred energy supplier. The model will recover the massive investments necessary to implement a widespread infrastructure without loading any additional cost onto recharges.

The new EV recharging infrastructure must include the following features:

• Availability in all private and public areas where end users traditionally park their vehicles

• Safe and user-friendly charging points

• A variety of secure payment procedures

• Compliance with current free energy market regulations, allowing customers access to the energy plans provided by their energy suppliers.

Enel Distribuzione is leveraging its unique know-how to design this innovative infrastructure and create a solution that is fully integrated into the utility's network assets. Remotely manageable and configurable, like already deployed infrastructures, this new infrastructure will be rolled out to comply with existing operational procedures.

The design of the architecture will result in all public charging points being equipped with three communication interfaces: one for local client/vehicle communication, one for communication with a centralized clearinghouse and one for communication with the DSO.

The first of these interfaces will provide a variety of means of communication to support existing electric vehicles and next-generation smart vehicles. The role of the interface is to identify the client and oversee charging operations, allowing clients to start, stop and monitor the entire process, while enabling the network to configure recharging features according to available network power capacity.

The second interface, which links to the clearinghouse, allows real-time, centralized recharge authorization and transmits charging operation logs to the clearinghouse. Authorization is requested from the clearinghouse at the beginning of each charging operation by forwarding the contract identification and, in response, receiving the client's profile details. These details can then be used to determine the optimal charging profile — in terms of power and time — taking into account contractual rates and network conditions. The process also may involve active collaboration between the charging point and a smart vehicle by taking advantage of vehicle-to-charging-point communication.

The third interface, with the DSO, uses the existing Enel automated meter management (AMM) network to retrieve cumulative metering logs and configure the charging point network connection parameters.

This solution will make it possible for the customers of different energy suppliers to access recharging services, as every supplier would receive details of customer transactions (the power distributed and a time stamp) from the clearinghouse. As a result, each client would receive energy bills from their energy supplier and be able to recharge at every charging point in the country. Currently in the Italian electricity market, there are more than 160 energy suppliers. These companies have electricity supply contracts with their customers and Enel Distribuzione provides the metering data to all these companies

Leveraging Enel Technology

In order to successfully deliver this solution, the new charging points will leverage Enel's technology, including the Enel smart meter as a kernel for providing all certified metering functionalities and guaranteeing homogeneity in data acquisition and final customer billing management. Other functionalities implemented to fulfill the new infrastructure requirements will be supported by an additional electronic board that is an evolution of the control board used in the data concentrator installed in the smart meter infrastructure. This new board will support all EV recharging processes, including data communication with the EV through the power line carrier, and will manage data communication with the central clearinghouse.

In addition to all protection devices necessary for safety purposes, the charging points will integrate two separate EV-dedicated plug-compliant sockets: a single-phase socket that complies with the current Italian standard for EV recharging in public areas and a poly-phase EV recharging socket currently in the standardization pipeline. The first generation of electric vehicles will be single phase, but already in the development phase are new vehicles with integrated poly-phase rechargers, which are expected to be available in 2011.

Output From the e-Mobility Project

Enel Distribuzione's new infrastructure will implement a solution that offers a wide range of new services and establishes an innovative way of recharging electric vehicles. Customers will be able to find and book an available charging point close to their current position. They will be able to recharge their car, choosing either the fastest or cheapest option available on the contract subscribed with their energy supplier and depending on current network capacity. This recharge capability will be available at any new charging point installed in Italian cities. Finally, customers will pay for all recharges in both private and public areas via a single invoice, at the agreed-upon rates with their energy supplier

Enel Distribuzione is directly involved with car manufacturers and utilities focused on the definition of standards for the connection between the EV and recharging infrastructure. In addition to its collaboration with all the main car manufacturers, Enel has signed an agreement with Daimler in order to test the e-mobility in three Italian cities. The utility is rolling out a pilot test deployment of the first release of this infrastructure in the Italian cities of Pisa, Rome and Milan. The preliminary activities for the pilot test, which will continue until 2013, are in progress with the first charging points scheduled for commissioning in July 2010

Business Opportunity Forecast Benefits

Enel Distribuzione has evaluated potential business models for public recharging infrastructure development investment. The evaluation process was underpinned by the basic premise that the charging network must satisfy customer needs. According to forecasts of the Italian e-mobility market, potential customer numbers are set to rise to a penetration level as high as 30% of sales by 2020.

Customer behavior was modeled taking into account two customer types: clients who have a private parking place (e.g., a house or apartment garage) and clients who normally park their vehicles on the street. Those without their own private parking facilities, who account for approximately 34% of customers in Italy, will be wholly dependent on the public recharging infrastructure. On the contrary, it is assumed customers who have their own private parking place will predominantly recharge a vehicle in their garage and only use public infrastructure under specific circumstances, for example when a journey exceeds the battery's capacity.

In both cases, customers will be able to charge their vehicles when needed, without modifying their normal habits, as recharging activities will be available during normal parking time. This requires the charging infrastructure to offer high levels of availability nationwide and to be adequately extensive in order to avoid congestion. Initially, the infrastructure should be slightly oversized to assure all customers they can recharge as and when needed.

Enel Distribuzione research suggests that, in the urban environment, optimal sizing would be about one charging point for every eight electric vehicles. These figures, together with market forecasts, demonstrate how important large investments, estimated at 1 billion euros (US$1300 million), will be; these investments will need to be sustained over 10 years. A business of this nature is not compatible with a private investment decision. Therefore, the DSO business model seems the most appropriate choice.

Infrastructure Cost

The success of e-mobility will indeed depend on customer choice. It is imperative to offer a solution that provides customers with sound economic benefits over traditional vehicles. From this perspective, it is fundamental to minimize the weight of infrastructure cost as a proportion of energy costs. This objective is unlikely to be achieved if the cost of the entire infrastructure is borne solely by EV users, as they would consequently see a noticeable reduction in energy savings. This issue is particularly critical when considering the actual costs of electric vehicle batteries, which alone can nullify the benefits.

One potential solution would be to socialize overall investment costs across all electricity market customers, which would only engender a modest increase in energy tariffs. With such an approach, the infrastructure would be a regulated asset, whose cost is socialized, confirming that the DSO business model developed by Enel Distribuzione would be the right solution for promoting electric mobility.

Federico Caleno (federico.caleno@enel.com) is marketing and business development manager in the network technologies department of Enel Distribuzione SpA. He is a graduate telecommunication engineer and has spent seven years with Telecom Italia. Caleno is now responsible for defining the technical infrastructure to support value-added services, for promoting the innovative Enel automated meter management system to other utilities worldwide, for defining a development plan of services related with the Enel smart metering project and for implementing the new infrastructure for electric vehicle recharging.

Paolo Scuro (paolo.scuro@enel.com) is a business developer and project manager in network technology at Enel Distribuzione. Prior to joining Enel, he was a project manager and system engineer for several ICT projects in the space industry. An expert in technology management and business analysis, Scuro is now mainly focused on developing solutions for Enel's smart grid and electric-mobility projects. In 2009, Scuro earned his MBA degree from the Luiss Business School in Rome, Italy.

Companies mentioned in this article:

Enel Distribuzione www.enel.it

Daimler www.daimler.com