Key to the UK's Zero Emission Transport strategy is alleviating consumer range anxiety and accelerating Electric Vehicles (EVs) adoption by deploying ultra-rapid (100-350 kW) EV chargers to high-utilisation locations. To deliver this will considerably affect "business as usual" for consumers and network businesses, at great capital expenditure.
This project brings together proven technologies and existing energy infrastructure to:
- introduce a direct alternative to capital-intensive network reinforcements;
- divert costs from consumers and create the technical framework for revenue
- streams to prosumers, and; scale EV uptake, furthering the UK's Net Zero agenda.
The 'Planning and EV Charging Operation Utilising Low-Carbon Generators' (NAVIGATION) Project aims to demonstrate how predictive grid mapping AI; fuel-flexible, pollutant-free power generation; and real-time optimisation and control technology can employ the gas network, as it evolves to 100% renewable, as an alternative energy vector for the power provision for ultra-rapid EV charging infrastructure.
Project NAVIGATION brings together world-class expertise across AI (Farad.ai), distributed, renewable-fuelled power generation (IPG), optimal real-time control (SMPnet) and a key energy sector stakeholder (SGN):
- SGN is a leading gas network operator, already delivering on a number of innovation projects designed to enable and accelerate the transition to a hydrogen gas network.
- Farad.ai's AI-powered Compass product will identify high-demand sites for ultra-rapid EV charging that currently cannot be served by electricity grid but are in proximity of a gas network connection (SGN). This technology is TRL 6/7.
- IPG's pollutant-free, fuel-agnostic power generator, the IPG Flameless Generator, will provide the additional capacity and balancing services using the gas network, as it transitions to hydrogen. IPG's technology is proven to be a clean, off-grid EV charging solution in a £1 million SBRI project with National Highways, funded via Innovate UK. This technology is TRL 6/7.
- SMPnet's Smart Network Controller (SNC), a high-computing, powerful controller, will supervise, optimise, and control multi-vector energy assets, in real-time and in a coordinated manner. This product has been developed through Innovate-UK-funded projects entitled 'LMEX', 'INFINITE' and Perth 'Smart Energy Network' at a TRL 6/7.
The end users of this project include funding schemes in charge of co-ordinating EV uptake, gas and electricity network owners and operators, EV users and indirectly regulators. The end users and wider stakeholders benefit from: faster EV charging in locations that meet demand; lower carbon emissions; higher air quality; access to new revenue streams; and, reduction of consumer costs by minimising network operators' capital expenditures.
Problem Bring Solved
Problem
Consumer range anxiety is a barrier to widescale adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs), fuelled by low availability of public chargers and lengthy charging times at non-rapid charge points (<50 kW).
To overcome this barrier, the UK's Zero Emission Transport strategy includes the deployment of ultra-rapid EV charging network (100-350 kW) in high-utilisation locations to supplement home and work-based charging.
Ultra-rapid charging in these locations is subject to network constraints and issues such as balancing and decreasing system inertia. Meeting the intermittent, highly unpredictable demand of ultra-rapid chargers requires network reinforcements across multiple voltage levels. This is not always technically nor economically viable, particularly in city centres and remote locations with high traffic throughput (e.g. motorways), where this infrastructure is essential.
These reinforcements include network and generation capacity increases. The latter typically occurs at distances from the vicinity of the constraint with lack of utilisation of local resources (e.g. gas network) and lack of incentive for provision of V2G infrastructure (EV charge points with bi-directional power capability) which effectively underutilises EV's capability to provide flexibility back to the network and hinders EV users' ability to participate in markets with high revenue streams.
Opportunity
With UK gas network operators transitioning to biomethane and hydrogen, there is an opportunity to utilise this energy vector to support the growth of zero emission transport. Coupling local gas and electricity networks can alleviate capacity constraints and balancing issues of delivering ultra-rapid EV charging, preventing the need for city-wide reinforcement of the distribution and transmission networks.
This project underpins five core objectives with tangible opportunities for network consumers and wider stakeholders:
- Combine greater visibility across different vectors of the energy network with predicted EV demand to identify optimal EV charger deployment
- Couple local gas network with the low-voltage distribution network to alleviate grid constraints in key locations for ultra-rapid EV charging
- Enable the gas network to transition to green hydrogen by deploying distributed, fuel-agnostic, zero-pollutant power generation assets
- Optimally control energy assets in real-time to create G2V and V2G services business case and allow handles directly to network operators
- Directly increase system inertia, minimising investment for equipment to alleviate inertia-induced issues
The network innovation represented by this project creates a blueprint for the
coupling of gas and electricity energy vectors that is applicable both across the UK, and in key export markets in the EU and beyond, where similar constraint and balancing issues exist.
Impacts and benefits
The impacts and benefits defined in the Discovery phase application were:
• Economic Benefits
o Limit redundancy in EV infrastructure deployment by identifying optimal locations.
o Increased revenue streams from participation of EVs in flexibility markets
• Environmental Benefits
o Reduced net CO2 emissions from:
increase in adoption of EVs;
use of renewable fuels;
optimised utilisation of power generation assets.
During the Discovery Phase partners collaborated to fill gaps in the knowledge required to further detail and define these benefits.
In particular, the consortium has competed the following actions:
• Identification of the steps required to enable flexibility service provision from Flameless Generators and EVs in compliance with the network’s technical requirements.
• Identification of methods and considerations for using SMPnet's technology to supervise, optimise and control involved energy assets (e.g. IPG's Flameless Generator, EV chargers, etc.) in order to help electricity and gas network to cooperate towards sharing existing flexibility and simultaneously enable the participation of EV in the flexibility markets.
● Development of representative case studies for the realisation of flexibility products by EVs, Flameless Generators and both (i.e., offline simulations considering different flexibility products).
● Development of data analytics models to forecast the EV asset status prior to the flexibility service realisation (i.e. EV charging pattern).
● Farad.ai’s methodology has Identified exemplar sites, within the project partners redundant land assets, which could form the basis of power generation, hydrogen production, or EV infrastructure during a future deployment in the ongoing phases of the project.
The consortium has made detailed progress towards further defining the benefits identified during the Discovery Phase and are confident that the learnings and technical results presented in the Discovery phase provide sufficient insight to warrant further investigation. We believe that the funding to be requested in Alpha phase presents good value for money to further identify the impacts and benefits that utilising the gas network, as it transitions to 100% renewable, can be as an alternative to widescale, capital-intensive network reinforcements to enable the deployment of ultra-rapid EV charging.
