What do we have in store?

The transition to electric motoring is dependent on the provision of reliable and accessible public chargepoint infrastructure. However, the deployment of EV charging projects can hampered by the lack of electricity capacity, which can result on installations being scaled back, relocated away from preferred sites, or delayed.

One potential solution is the use of energy storage systems (ESS), which can be used to deliver high-powered chargers at areas such as motorway service areas or rural locations. For example, National Highways is currently deploying ESS units across the motorway network at service areas operated by Extra, Roadchef, Welcome Break and Westmorland.

These are grid-scale batteries housed in a heated and air conditioned 40-foot shipping container, which can support additional high-powered (150kW) electric vehicle chargepoints. With a typical storage capacity of 2MWh, the batteries in each system (which will charge overnight when spare electricity is available) have enough energy to support over 2 million miles of zero-emission motoring each year. To put the energy in perspective, a single charge would be capable of meeting the electrical needs of a typical home for roughly eight months.

The win-win aspect of ESS is that they can use secondlife batteries, units that have been recycled from road vehicles, so the supply will both help ensure that motorists are unlikely to be caught without somewhere to charge and be sustainable.

Mark Moran Editor

Energy storage systems offer a way to deliver high-power charging in remote and rural locations