INESC-ID has recently signed an agreement for a Horizon Europe project under Cluster 5: Climate, Energy and Mobility. The AHEAD project (AI-informed Holistic Electric Vehicles Integration Approaches for Distribution Grids), aims to not only determine the most convenient location to place electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, but also optimise both the usage of the power grid resources, and the charging stations located in urban and rural areas. Within this call, two other projects will be launched.

At INESC-ID, the project is led by Hugo Morais, researcher in the Sustainable Power Systems (SPS) scientific area, with a total funding of 10 million 997K €, (916K € of which will fund participation by INESC-ID), and a consortium of 26 partners, within the EV value-chain, from 10 different countries.

AHEAD will last for 48 months during which the simulation environment will leverage unique current AI models with two layers: spatial mapping for charger placement based on user needs and power grid placement for grid support. During this period, innovative smart charging algorithms will be developed and tested to minimise the network impact and provide economic benefits to consumers. Additionally, these algorithms will be tested in three demonstration sites to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility for light and heavy-duty EVs and boats.

In the end it is expected to reach an optimised grid resource usage and mitigate EV charging impacts while advancing societal knowledge, focusing on user experience and cybersecurity, by minimising smart charging impacts and creating defences against cyber-attacks on chargers.