Although they occupy only three percent of the Earth's surface, cities are today home to half of the world's population. Building smarter cities is a prerequisite for societal sustainability in future, and at ABB we are using our expertise to create intelligent solutions for energy, water supply, transport and buildings so that cities can thrive.
“We have to take city development to the next level. Just making private houses smarter and more energy-efficient isn’t enough. We have to optimize cities at the system level, for example by connecting the full range of urban properties to production and distribution of electricity,” said Johan Granström, responsible for smart cities at ABB Energy Industries Sweden.
Innovative approach
Together with stakeholders including Umeå Municipality and Umeå Energi, ABB participated in an Umeå energy sub-project in which the Nanna car park was transformed into a node for energy sharing and optimization of production, storage and consumption of energy carriers. In addition to a simulated photovoltaic (solar cell) system on the car park's roof, parked electric cars and ABB's vehicle-to-building (V2B) charging technology, ABB deployed its advanced Optimax™ platform for energy distribution control. Different scenarios were simulated and analyzed resulting in reduced energy costs for the car park, with the energy from electric car batteries becoming a temporary source of power when the renewable element was insufficient to match demand.
Mobile energy fleet
“The project showed that, from a societal perspective, there is definitely potential in sharing and storing energy in this way,” said Magnus Stenvall, responsible for strategic partnerships and collaborations at Umeå Energi.
It confirmed that using electric cars as energy storage can make a big contribution to the transition to sustainable energy systems.
“Cars are parked 95 percent of the time, representing a giant fleet of mobile energy storage that can become an active part of the system. This very exciting project definitely strengthened the idea that mobility and energy systems are closely linked,” said Granström.
Magnus Stenvall of Umeå Energi and ABB’s Johan Granström in front of City Hall in Umeå. 
Welcome to Nanna car park and contribute to reduced energy costs! 
Using parked electric cars as energy storage can play a major role in the transition to sustainable energy systems in the cities of the future.
New opportunities
In smart cities, all available resources must be used to their full potential. ABB's V2B and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology helps create systems that work in both directions – both for charging and feeding energy back into distribution networks and/or buildings.
“We will definitely see more of this type of circular solution in future. Our increasing need for electricity is often seen as a threat, but I see it as an opportunity; with smart solutions, products like electric cars can help to balance the grid and store energy,” Granström added.
V2G and V2B technology enables the batteries to function as a temporary power source. Using V2G cars can both be charged from the grid while also providing support services for frequency control, power reserve and peak sharing. V2B technology can be used alongside renewable energy sources such as the solar cells in the Nanna car park.
Broad cooperation is key
Moving from smart city concepts to concrete projects is no problem from a technical perspective. However, before car parks can become active energy hubs in reality, we still need to figure out who is responsible for what, the regulatory framework and suitable business models.
“We need to get various building blocks in place. What role should car manufacturers have? What role should car drivers have? How do energy companies fit in the picture? Identifying business models for sharing economic and environmental values is also a key challenge to solve,” said Stenvall.
He is adamant that multi-stakeholder collaboration on both technical and commercial aspects, and across traditional divides, is the way forward. ABB will certainly continue to work together with Umeå Energi to these ends.
“In our strategic partnership with ABB we are working to identify an ecosystem that extends our value creation, both economically and in terms of sustainability,” said Stenvall.
Sharing Cities Sweden
Sharing City Umeå is part of the Sharing Cities Sweden umbrella project under the Viable Cities national innovation program. Umeå focused on studying economies in the urban environment ranging from energy sharing to sharing green spaces and leisure equipment. Umeå Parkerings AB, Sweco and Rebase Energy were other stakeholders in the energy sub-project.
