Project Summary
The project will meet challenge 4: enabling cost-effective integration of a transport decarbonisation solution aligned to net zero timescales. It will develop a solution that will accelerate deployment of public charging infrastructure, facilitating widespread adoption of EVs. The solution meets requirement 1: effectively facilitate, manage, and integrate multiple demands and demand-side solutions. It will develop a charger for wide deployment with minimal network disruption to facilitate EV demand. It will have DER, smart charging and V2G capabilities, which can be used to provide flexibility services.
The energy network innovation comes from the deployment of a DC converter at the point of connection, allowing higher-speed charging with minimal network reinforcement. This converter, with smart charging and V2G capabilities, also has a communication module. This allows for innovation in dynamic power and energy management systems, LV flexibility services, adaptive planning, and near-real-time data access.
The experience and capability of project partners:
- UK Power Networks: as the largest DNO in the UK serving 8.4m customers, we have deep expertise in developing innovative and smart solutions to facilitate charging infrastructure and the uptake of EVs and flexibility services. There are 20,000 public chargers in our licence areas, the most of any DNO.
- Otaski Energy Solutions: a smart infrastructure and AI-based energy management company that innovates to create circular economies for smart infrastructure. They have developed the first of its kind smart lamppost, the INtuitIV Digital Lamppost (IDL). This project will advance IDLs by developing bi-directional MIMO DC-DC converter hardware that drives a multifunctional system.
- Brighton and Hove City Council: they serve nearly 300,000 residents on the south coast. They have already rolled out around 200 lamppost chargers in the city, with plans to install a further 400 in the next few years.
- SP Energy Networks: SPEN's experience in offering EV chargepoints will contribute to test the scalability of the solution developed by another DNO.
The potential users of the innovation are owners of lampposts, principally local authorities and car park operators, as well as chargepoint operators. The end users are customers, who will use the public charging provided. The project addresses local authorities' needs by developing a simple, easy to implement and low-cost solution to public charging, with the potential for a revenue stream from their assets. It meets customers' needs by providing fast public charging in convenient on street locations, with the potential for added value from smart charging and V2G services.
Innovation Justification
Problem:
Around 40% of UK households do not have off-street parking and will rely upon public charging infrastructure to meet their charging needs. To support this, the UK government has predicted that 300,000 public chargepoints need to be installed by 2030. Significant network upgrades, reinforcement and streetworks would be required if this target was met purely by conventional EV chargepoints. A lack of smart charging or V2G at public chargepoints also makes things more costly for customers.
Innovation:
Our solution has two main application approaches: (i) in new developments, with a convertor at a single point of connection to the network and a DC line network between new lampposts; and (ii) a smaller, modular converter for retrofitting existing lampposts.
In both cases, the solution can integrate DER to allow smart, fast charging at 7-22kW with minimal distribution network upgrades. It creates a control management system that integrates customers' needs, the grid's available capacity and DER to dynamically alter charging capacity and provide flexibility to the networks. The data generated from charging events can be shared to support forecasting and planning. With embedded and decentralised storage and the bidirectional converter, the system offers V2G capabilities.
Knowledge gap:
NIA project Charge Collective found that deployment of on-street charging can be expensive and time consuming, and the business model challenging. It also found that customers are willing to do smart charging on-street if the technology is reliable. This project plans to fill the missing gaps from these findings: how can public chargepoint deployment be sped up and more investable, and smart charging made feasible for on-street charging?
Economic and sustainability value:
The appropriate counterfactual is the current on-street charging market. This is either slow lamppost charging, or faster bollard charging with higher network costs. Economic value will be delivered by developing the solution of new DC-line infrastructure that can be rolled out at the installation stage from a single point of connection, minimising costs normally associated with higher powered charging capabilities. If the solution can accelerate the roll-out of public charging, and therefore EVs, this will lead to lower emissions from transport and improved air quality.
This project cannot be funded elsewhere or by BAU as the technology being proposed here is very much at its nascent state. SIF is a clear mechanism that enables us to conduct the research and feasibility assessment required.
Project Benefits
Financial - future reductions in the cost of operating the network
- For new developments, we will track the reduction in costs through the network costs for facilitating public chargepoints in locations where the solution is implemented and would expect to achieve a 20-30% reduction in these compared to the business-as-usual counterfactual, but this will be quantified through the development of the solution.
- For smart charging benefits, UK Power Networks estimates benefits of over £400m from deferred reinforcement costs facilitated by flexibility services in ED2, and this solution could help to realise a small portion of these benefits.
- The feasibility of smart charging and V2G charging needs to be assessed at Discovery Phase before quantification of this benefit.
Financial - cost savings per annum on energy bills for consumers
Revenues - improved access to revenues for users of network services
Current estimates are £412 of savings per year from smart charging for those who do so off-street. Customers can also earn revenue from smart charging, as seen from ESO's CrowdFlex trial These savings and revenues will be assessed by comparing the cost of similar charging sessions over a year without smart charging.
Environmental - carbon reduction -- indirect CO2 savings per annum against a business-as-usual counterfactual
The reduction in carbon and improvement in air quality from increased EV uptake can be quantified as a monetary benefit using Green Book values and an assumed uptake rate for the new chargers.
New to market -- products, processes, and services
The proposed solution would deliver two new market products. Firstly, a new type of lamppost that would support DC/DC bidirectional EV charging when implemented as part of a new development, and secondly the mechanism to convert existing lampposts to support bidirectional EV charging. Both would also be a new source of energy flexibility.
As part of the Discovery Phase, we will assess the overall benefits of the project through a cost-benefit analysis, looking at the increased cost of the lamppost versus the overall benefits.
