Endesa hosts the first European CHAdeMO meeting, the fast charging system for electric vehicles

The objective of the association is to increase the installation of the points of fast charge at world-wide level, as well as the homogenization of the charge standards.

ENDESA has determined the policy of development of the model of sustainable transport based on the electrical vehicle as one of the main routes for its fight against the climatic change, a fundamental base of its Strategic Plan of Sustainability 2008-2012.

ENDESA hosts in its headquarters the first CHAdeMO meeting in Europe. CHAdeMO is the major international association that provides fast recharging services to electrical vehicles and whose objective is to increase the installation of these fast recharging points worldwide as well as to homogenize the recharging standards.

ENDESA formally joined the association last April 2010, and since then, the objective of the association has been to extend the current system and protocol worlwide. ENDESA, as a member, participates in the evolution of both the protocol as well as the connector (the plug).

In addition, Endesa will be able to develop its own technology based on the Chademo standard for future service stations for electrical vehicles, that will allow recharging of electric vehicles in a fifteen minute span.

CHAdeMO (Charge and Move) was born last year with Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Subaru and the Japanese electrical utility TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power) as founding partners. So far, the developed protocol has been tested mainly in Japan, this country becoming the world’s largest fast charge network with 312 recharging points.

CHAdeMO is now an international association integrating another 316 companies and government entities to its partnership, including 61 companies from the car manufacturing industry, chargers manufacturers, recharging service providers and electricity utilities.

Within this association, Endesa and Enel are two of the three companies representing the European electricity sector, along with the Irish electricity utility ESB. The ChadeMo standard addresses two issues: the communication protocol between the vehicle and the recharging point, and the physical connection between both (the connector).

Standardizing on these two issues allows for the vehicle and recharging point to be the ones managing the recharging process. In this way, Chademo Standards allows the use of the same Recharging Infrastructure by different Electrical Vehicles. Electrical Japanese TEPCO developed the standard based on a testing program started in 2006 with about 300 electrical vehicles in Tokyo.

The results illustrated that the fast recharging unfold is key in the use of the electric vehicles. With respect to these guidelines and with the aim of supporting the implantation of the electrical cars, ENDESA sees fast charge in public facilities as a complementary solution the domestic and office stadard recharging points.

The acronym CHAdeMO is an abbreviation of Charge to Move and is based on a Japanese pun O cha demo ikaga deska, which can be translated as "Let’s have tea while we charge ".

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