SECHA project secures €4 million for developing EV charging solutions and servicesPublished on 13.5.2025

In late 2024, Business Finland granted Co-Innovation funding for a two-year project titled "Scaling EV CHArging solutions for new values and services in collaboration networks" (SECHA). The consortium conducting this project constitutes an ecosystem involving research organisations, industrial companies and power grid companies, with Tampere University as the coordinator.

The SECHA consortium aims to advance the technology underlying charging solutions for electric vehicles (EVs) and associated business models, while also exploring methods to generate new value and services for end users, technology providers and electricity market stakeholders.

The scope of the project spans from single-phase EV charging at home to high-power charging for heavy traffic.

Among other objectives, the project aims to:

• refine the scenarios for the development of various EV fleets;
• develop and demonstrate EV charging solutions and power management methods, including vehicle-to-grid (V2G) solutions;
• study the impact of EV charging on power grids and power quality as well as explore opportunities for value creation in electricity and flexibility markets;
• develop and demonstrate charging data management and system interfaces.

Multidisciplinary expertise is brought to the project by the research partners, including research groups at Tampere University specialising in electrical engineering, computing sciences, and traffic and logistics, groups at LUT University focusing on energy systems, electricity markets, electric transport, and innovations and logistics, and the group at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland developing electric vehicles and charging solutions.

The total budget of the SECHA project is close to €4 million. The industrial companies participating in the project provide charging equipment, battery energy storage systems, measurement and control solutions and ICT systems. The project is part of the initiatives led by Kempower Oyj and Tietoevry Finland Oy, respectively, under Business Finland's Leading Companies and Ecosystems Programme.

"The collaboration between Kempower and Tietoevry under this Business Finland programme advances our expertise in digital solutions for managing energy and power within power grids and the charging infrastructure. These development efforts necessitate an in-depth understanding of power grids and the EV charging ecosystem. Through collaboration within the consortium, the SECHA project will support the development of flexible and increasingly cost-effective EV charging solutions," say Antti Seppälä, Business Development Lead, Energy & Utilities at Tietoevry, and Mikko Veikkolainen, Vice President of Research and Innovation at Kempower Oyj.

Project funding is also allocated to IGL Technologies Oy and UTU Oy, which provide charging solutions and technology. The industrial companies within the consortium include AGCO Power Oy, Cactos Oy, Merus Power Oy, MX Elextrix Oy, Ramboll Finland Oy and Wapice Oy. The power grid companies participating in the project are Fingrid Oyj, Elenia Verkko Oyj, Järvi-Suomen Energia Oy, KSS Verkko Oy, Kymenlaakson Sähköverkko Oy, Savon Voima Verkko Oy and Tampereen Energia Sähköverkko Oy. The project has also received financial support from the Electricity Research Pool.