BUDAPEST: The local unit of German engineering giant Siemens and the Budapest University of Technology and Economics wound up a joint research and development project valued at approximately HUF 281 mln, which focused on power electronics and electric transport, a press release said yesterday.
The R&D project, which was aimed at the optimization of the energy supply system and electric drive for electric cars, was supported by the Hungarian government and financed by the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund (NKFIA) within the framework of Széchenyi 2020, the press release said. NKFIA provided approximately HUF 199 mln for the project.
“It is expected that by 2025, vehicle manufacturing will significantly concentrate on cars that have an electric drive partly or fully. On the one hand, using electric cars significantly decreases the effect of exhaust fumes, while electric cars under charge negatively affect the electric supply network’s power quality. There are no legislations currently regulating this, however, this negative effect needs to be minimized, hence the Siemens and BME’s joint R&D project,” leader of the project, docent Dr. István Varjasi said.
“During the project we were researching new processes that cause less network distortion, and we developed a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulator that helps us test battery charging in a digital environment. We have overperformed our initial aims,” Dr. Gergely György Balázs, research leader at Siemens, said.