Electric Nation launched at low carbon vehicle event

Trial seeks to find ways to ensure power grid can cope with rising electric vehicle ownership

A trial of a smart charging solution that seeks to enable growing use of domestic charge points to be served by the local electricity network has been launched. The Electric Nation project was unveiled at the CENEX LCV2016 low carbon vehicle event, LCV2016, held at the Millbrook Proving Ground in Befordshire.

Electric Nation will recruit between 500-700 people, who will buy or lease new electric vehicles, including pure electric and plug-in models. Trial participants will get a free smart charger installed.

The findings of the trial will help electricity network operators manage the effect of the additional load caused by charging EVs on the local electricity network whilst allowing electric vehicle numbers to grow. While the UK electricity grid has sufficient capacity to deliver power to electric vehicles, there are concerns that if clusters of EVs develop in local areas and all are charged at peak times then some local electricity networks may become overloaded.

Electric Nation is the customer-facing brand of CarConnect, a project funded by Western Power Distribution (WPD) and Network Innovation Allowance. Ben Godfrey, Innovation and Low Carbon Networks Engineer, WPD, says: “The Electric Nation project will provide the data, and the real-life experience, to enable us to introduce smart charging to manage potential capacity issues due to clusters of EVs charging at peak times. This is predicted to save around £2.2bn, as well as helping to avoid disruption to customers.”

Electric Nation is a follow-up to the My Electric Avenue project, which tested monitoring and control technology by recruiting clusters of EV users; all people in a cluster were fed by the same local electricity substation feeder, and just one type of electric vehicle was involved in the project. The My Electric Avenue project’s modelling indicated that across Britain some 32% of supply cables (312,000 in all) will require intervention when between 40% and 70% of customers have EVs.

WPD and Network Innovation Allowance believe using smart technology rather than digging up the roads to install new cables could give an economic saving of around £2.2bn by 2050.

The trial will initially take place in geographic locations within the WPD network, which covers the South West, South Wales, East and West Midlands.

Drive Electric is responsible for recruiting participants and all customer-facing activity. Mike Potter, managing director of DriveElectric said: “Motorists who are in the process of buying or leasing a plug-in vehicle are encouraged to visit the Electric Nation website and become part of our project. They will get a free smart charger, but most importantly, they will be helping to future-proof Britain’s electricity networks to facilitate the continued uptake of EVs.”

Electric Nation will provide a top-up contribution towards a smart charger in addition to any applicable OLEV (Office of Low Emission Vehicles) electric vehicle home charge scheme. Assuming the participant meets all eligibility criteria, the participant will pay £150 initially and this will be reimbursed upon completion of the trial. Trial participants that do not meet all eligibility criteria can still potentially participate in the trial, though there may be additional costs for them to do so.