Skip to main content

Evolt smart chargers selected for major nationwide trial

Evolt, the Swarco Group’s eMobility brand, has been selected to provide its smart electric vehicle (EV) chargers for Electric Nation, a UK-wide trial that is seeking to better understand the demand and impact that ‘at-home charging’ places on the local power distribution networks.
November 7, 2016 Read time: 2 mins

Evolt, the 129 Swarco Group’s eMobility brand, has been selected to provide its smart electric vehicle (EV) chargers for Electric Nation, a UK-wide trial that is seeking to better understand the demand and impact that ‘at-home charging’ places on the local power distribution networks.

Greater demand is being placed on power networks as the take up of EVs widens, EV battery sizes increase, and charging times get faster. This demand is particularly noticeable when EVs in the same local network are charging simultaneously.

The Electric Nation project aims to implement a prototype smart charging solution that will better manage power distribution at a local level at peak times.

Evolt is providing its smart charging unit to half of the 500-700 members of the public that are being recruited for Electric Nation. Its units will be subsidised by the Office for Low Emission Vehicles and Western Power Distribution (WPD), which is funding the project. Initially, the project will take place within the bounds of WPD (the South West, South Wales, and the Midlands), but has the ability to be rolled out nationally.

Electric Nation is the customer-facing brand of CarConnect, a WPD and Network Innovation Allowance funded project. WPD’s collaboration partners in the project are EA Technology, DriveElectric, Lucy Electric GridKey and TRL.

Related Content

  • April 23, 2012
    IBM Research boosts Battery 500 project
    IBM has announced that two industry leaders, Asahi Kasei and Central Glass, will join its Battery 500 Project team and collaborate on far-reaching research with the potential to accelerate the switch from gasoline to electricity as the primary power source for vehicles. In 2009, IBM Research pioneered a sustainable mobility project to develop lithium-air battery technology capable of powering a family-sized electric car for approximately 500 miles (800 km) on a single charge.
  • December 4, 2014
    Global navigation reference point to test zero emission driverless vehicles
    A successful consortium led by the UK’s Transport research Laboratory (TRL) has been selected by Innovate UK to deliver the GATEway project (Greenwich Automated Transport Environment), one of three projects awarded to test driverless vehicles in UK urban locations. The US$12.5 million project will see three trials of different types of zero emission automated vehicles within an innovative, technology-agnostic testing environment set in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The ‘prime meridian’ was establi
  • January 21, 2014
    San Francisco to trial ‘smart’ street lighting controls
    San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) is to trial a ‘smart’ street lighting central management system, (CMS) developed by UK-based smart street lighting company Telensa. The SFPUC owns, operates and maintains over half the city’s street lights and recently announced a project to replace its high pressure sodium cobra-head style light fixtures with ultra-efficient light emitting diodes (LED) luminaires. Telensa’s PLANet (Public Lighting Active Network) street light central management sys
  • October 10, 2012
    Integrated weather and traffic data aids winter maintenance
    A US pooled fund study group has developed a system of software aimed at taking the concept of winter maintenance decision support to a new level – a scientific ‘one-stop-shop’ of weather and service performance data. This report is by Charles Chambers and Benjamin Hershey. With advancements in environmental technology come new systems that assist agencies with better management of winter roadway maintenance resources. In the late 1990s the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) began work developing a pr