23 juin 21
Fil d'Actus

New 50MW battery goes live to support EV charging

A new giant battery storage system for recharging electric vehicles has gone live in Oxford today, creating a creates a blueprint for other towns and cities to achieve net zero carbon emissions.

The 50MW lithium-ion battery is directly connected to the UK’s high-voltage transmission system, run by National Grid.

An 8km private wire network will deliver power from the battery to both public and commercial EV charging locations across the city. These will include the UK’s largest public charging hub, with up to 10MW of power on site, which will feature 38 fast to ultra-rapid chargersdelivering 100% renewable energy to EV drivers day and night when it opens in a few months’ time.Fastned will initially install 10 chargers at the hub with 300kW of power, capable of adding 480km of range in just 20 minutes for up to hundreds of EVs per day.

Zero Emission Zone

Oxford is due to introduce the UK’s first Zero Emission Zone in August, charging vehicles to enter based on their emissions, although EVs will be able to use the zone for free.

Later this year, the battery will become a hybrid of lithium-ion and vanadium redox flow, and its massive capacity has been designed to integrate more renewable electricity generation, increase system resilience and future-proof the UK’s electricity network.

Matt Allen, CEO of Pivot Power, which has led the £41 million Government-backed scheme, said: “This is the first grid-scale battery to directly connect to the transmission network in the UK, and represents a key milestone for the completion of Energy Superhub Oxford and our mission to accelerate the UK towards net zero. We are planning up to 40 similar sites throughout the country.”

Authored by: Jonathan Manning