La Jaune et la Rouge: With DRIVECO, solar mobility is a reality
In the press
We meet Michael Coudyser (98), CEO of Corsica Sole, who tells us more about DRIVECO and the concept of solar mobility.
How did the idea for DRIVECO come about?
DRIVECO began as an R&D project focused on the concept of solar mobility and the idea of traveling using solar energy. After five years of research, the project became a fully-fledged company marketing its own solutions.
DRIVECO is a subsidiary of Corsica Sole, a company specializing in the design and operation of solar photovoltaic power plants.
Initially, we wanted to address a simple issue: in any region where the electricity mix is carbon-based, it is necessary to invent a solution for recharging electric vehicles using clean energy so that they do not pollute themselves, even indirectly.
DRIVECO has therefore developed an entire ecosystem around this idea: powering electric vehicles directly from solar photovoltaic energy.
How does this translate in practical terms?
To deploy solar mobility, we have designed and developed “Parasols.” A unique technological innovation, the Parasol® is an attractive, stylish charging station. It has a 150 m² roof composed of 88 photovoltaic panels that generate 29 kW of electrical power.
The Parasol is “universal”: it can be used to charge all types of electric or hybrid vehicles, day or night, even in bad weather, thanks to batteries that store surplus energy.
The system is completely autonomous and environmentally friendly: it does not emit any harmful emissions into the environment. It even has a rainwater recovery system for maintenance and to optimize the efficiency of the photovoltaic panels.
In concrete terms, the Parasol® will therefore produce energy, charge up to 8 electric vehicles simultaneously, store the solar energy produced, and feed the surplus into the electrical grid.
And Parasol® is also connected to the DRIVECO Smart Grid. Can you tell us more about that?
It’s a smart and innovative energy management system that we designed and developed in partnership with the teams at CEA-Tech INES. The Parasols® are connected and work together. They modulate the power fed into electric vehicles to ensure 100% solar charging at any time of day.
So, if there is not enough solar energy on one of the Parasols® to charge a vehicle, it will be possible to draw on the energy produced and stored on another Parasol® in the network.
This enables intelligent management of energy production and consumption in real time on the network.
With a proven demonstrator, what are the next steps?
We had the opportunity to launch the first smart solar mobility route, connecting Bastia to Ajaccio, thanks to support from the Corsican regional government, the French government, and the European Union.
Following the success of this demonstration project, we have designed a whole range of solutions: smart charging stations for fast charging, on private sites or on public roads, a monitoring system to control charging in real time and manage user subscriptions, and of course the commercial version of the Parasol® and Smart Grid Driveco!
The challenge now is to convince local authorities and businesses to switch to truly sustainable mobility.
