Solar-powered car-sharing system

Toshiba has completed construction of a car-sharing system for the Lyon Confluence Smart Community Demonstration Project.

The system implements Toshiba’s solar power-based electronic vehicle charge management system and entered commercial operation today. It will be operated by Proxiway, a wholly owned subsidiary of Transdev. The system was under a program organised by Japan’s NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization).

This car-sharing system is intended to ease traffic congestion and the lack of parking spaces in the Lyon redevelopment area, and to point the way to next-generation traffic systems that will contribute to the realisation of a low-carbon society. Thirty e-vehicles will be supported by each plug-in recharge station, and three quick charge stations in addition. The project will run for two years until December 2015.

Toshiba Group’s role is to build and maintain the system and its components, including its solar power generation amount forecasting system and charging schedule optimisation system that optimises use of renewable energy as an energy source of electric vehicles. This predicts solar power generation capacity on the basis of information from weather forecasts and climate analysis, and combines this information with the status of reservations for EV sharing and data from their electrical systems, to arrive at an optimised allocation of the vehicles to users and optimal control over the electricity charge schedule of each vehicle.

Photovoltaic power generation capacity is strongly influenced by the weather and this can have a major impact on large systems based on solar energy. A further challenge is optimising power charging system management in a car-sharing service where demand for vehicles will fluctuate. Collaboration with a French partner in a commercial operation will allow Toshiba Group to verify the practical effectiveness of traffic systems that rely on renewable energy.