Swarco, Connected Energy accelerate EV charging in UK
Swarco Smart Charging and OurCrowd portfolio company Connected Energy have teamed up to accelerate the rollout of electric vehicle charging across the UK, Transport and Energy reports.
Swarco’s charging stations will be powered by Connected Energy’s E-STOR system, which uses second life EV batteries as an energy storage system.
“This is a natural collaboration between two like-minded companies that are both on a mission to support vehicle electrification and help to decarbonize charging for organizations and drivers,” says Matthew Lumsden, CEO of Connected Energy.
When car batteries reach the end of their lives, they can still operate at high capacity – just not enough to meet the demands of powering a car. Connected Energy repurposes these depleted batteries and connects them together, extending their useful lives by years as an energy reserve for power grids.
The technology also saves landfills from the increasing blight of discarded electric vehicle batteries. The company, working closely with French car giant Renault, is preparing for a big ramp-up in battery availability between 2024 and 2025.
“This is a natural collaboration between two like-minded companies that are both on a mission to support vehicle electrification and help to decarbonize charging for organizations and drivers”
The collaboration between Swarco and Connected Energy aims to overcome two of the biggest barriers to the wider adoption of electric vehicles: energy capacity, and the costly and lengthy utility upgrades this can entail.
Capacity is a key issue at large fleet depots or public charging hubs. Energy stored in E-STOR is then available to meet spikes in demand during busy charging periods. Active charger management can avoid peak load spikes.
“Our energy storage solutions, using second life EV batteries, seamlessly works together with renewable technologies and EV charging technologies to give charge point owners ultimate flexibility over the energy required to deliver EV charging,” Lumsden says. The two companies first started working together in 2017 when Connected Energy’s E-STOR system was installed alongside SWARCO’s charging technology at the UK’s very first charging hub in Dundee.
“We are proud of the EV charging projects we’ve already delivered that use Connected Energy’s solutions and very much look forward to more successful projects in the future”
“Since we helped pioneer the installation of charging points in the UK more than a decade ago, as the size and scale of projects increases, we have seen EV charging projects hampered by the lack of electricity capacity,” says Swarco Smart Charging’s Managing Director Justin Meyer.
“We are proud of the EV charging projects we’ve already delivered that use Connected Energy’s solutions and very much look forward to more successful projects in the future.”
Connected Energy already has 16 operational systems across Europe in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.
Last year the company secured an additional GBP15 million, including major new investments from Caterpillar Venture Capital, Volvo Energy, Mercuria Energy Trading S.A., OurCrowd and Hinduja. This additional funding and the strategic value of these new parties will help to scale up business, the company has said.
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