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Velox selected as charging system for ground-breaking fleet trial
from Export & Freight Feb-Mar 23
by 4SMNI
The Velox charging system is the first ultra-rapid electric vehicle charger that is already Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) enabled, and it has been selected to take part in a ground-breaking trial to develop smart energy micro-grid networks for fleets.
The trial has received almost £200,000 in funding from the latest round of Government grants as part of its Flexible Innovation Programme. TPS, the engineering firm behind Velox, will partner with EV charge point management platform providers Fuuse – which is leading the project – and Gridicity, which offers back office intelligent energy supply and demand forecasting for EV charging.
The trial will take place at the Power Network Distribution Centre, based in Cumbernauld at the University of Strathclyde.
Smart energy micro-grids give businesses the ability to buy power, store it in vehicles and then distribute it wherever it might need it – to light and heat offices, or run machinery, for example. Crucial to this are V2X capable chargers such as the British-built Velox.
“V2X is the next generation of vehicle charging because it offers fundamental advantages over Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) systems, of which there are very few operational anyway, while standard chargers that encompass the vast majority of the market have no
V2G functionality, let alone V2X,” said TPS CEO Carlos Neves.
“What this trial will look to prove is that you can feed energy already paid for and in your vehicle batteries back into your buildings or machinery, meaning that you can buy electricity at off-peak rates, store it in your fleet, and then use it elsewhere in your business when that energy would be more expensive.
“For example, a business could charge its entire fleet overnight at off-peak rates, and if those vehicles are not needed the next day, it could take that cheap energy and use it to power offices during peak times, or even returning vehicles. The financial benefits of being able to do this are endless when contextualised with large electric vehicle fleets,” Neves said.
