Prof. Samuele Grillo from the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano is coordinator of the AHEAD (AI-Informed Holistic EVs Integration Approaches for Distribution Grids) project, funded under the European Union's Horizon Europe framework program for research and innovation.

The project will create a simulation environment capable of predicting the most convenient location to place the electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and optimize both the usage of the power grid resources, and the charging stations. This simulation environment will exploit the unique features of currently available AI models and include two layers: the spatial mapping one (placing the chargers where the people need them to be), and the power grid one (placing the chargers where the grid can host them).

Flexibility services will be designed and tested in the model, to minimize the impact of EV charging pools on the network, and ensure the consumers have economic benefits. Moreover, these smart charging algorithms will be tested in six demonstration sites, dedicated to assessing the technical and economic feasibility of smart charging light and heavy-duty EVs, and boats.

To this end, AHEAD gathered relevant partners from all the EV value-chain: technology providers wanting to test their equipment in the real world, grid operators, looking for optimised strategies to exploit grid resources and mitigate the EV charging impact, and research institutions, aiming at advancing the knowledge on the topic and producing value for society.

Particular attention is going to be placed on the user experience and cybersecurity part of the demonstrators, with specific partners focusing their efforts on understanding how to minimize the impact of smart charging on users’ experience and on creating a model able to represent cyber-attacks on the charging infrastructure and to suggest effective defensive mechanisms.