Autumn 2017
Course: Design Studies
In collaboration with: eSmart Systems
Group project with: Susanne Stubberud Rom
eSmart Systems took part in a competition where Avinor was seeking a full service supplier for a system to manage charging of electric vehicles at one of their airports.
How should a smart system decide which cars to charge? The stated goal was to limit power peaks in order to reduce power grid fees. Flexibility control mandates that the total power consumption and production of the site, along with the current price of electricity, should dictate when it is most desirable to charge the electric vehicles. The system should also display the current state of the system and report on deviations and required maintenance.
After an initial insight process, three iterations of the prototype were made. The first was a paper mockup, while the final two were full interactive prototypes. As we did not have access to Avinor staff for user testing, we used employees at the operations department at NTNU and employees at eSmart Systems for user testing. This provided valuable feedback for the iterative prototyping process.
The system’s primary objective is to reduce wattage peaks in order to reduce grid fees. Flexibility control entails that the current power costs and power consumption of other areas of the site decides when it is desirable to charge the electric vehicles.
Charging station deviations can be registered both automatically and manually. Resolving potential issues is also part of the solution, and the system can be viewed on a handheld device during live inspections. System also includes communication with third party vendors that handle repairs.
