Electric Heavy Goods Vehicles - first roll-out and demonstration of V2X and grid decarbonisation

As road vehicles move from fossil fuel-based to electric propulsion, and the electricity supply shifts from fossil fuel-based to renewables, a significant increase in energy storage will be needed to cope with the variable renewable electricity supply. While the additional demand from EVs presents a considerable challenge for grid operators, vehicle batteries present a considerable opportunity to provide vehicle-to-grid (V2G) services that can enable electrical grids to operate more efficiently. This includes load-balancing, which injects power into the grid when demand spikes and/or renewable power output falls, and absorbs power from the grid by recharging the batteries when renewable output exceeds demand (plus further services providing frequency stabilisation, and resilience, i.e, back-up power for essential services when outages occur). Well-managed V2G services could make the cost of powering eHGVs negative. The large batteries and predictable schedules of electric HGVs (eHGV) represent a major opportunity to provide these V2G services. Although not yet an established presence on roads, this is poised to change, with DAF, Renault, Volvo, Scania and Mercedes are expected to be launching eHGVs in 2025, and with the UK banning sales of new diesel HGVs by 2040. Further, increase in demand of up-cyclers in the market, servicing waste disposal and plant conversions demonstrates customer appetites for transition. As OEMs have been slow to the table in this transition - smaller more nimble engineering firms are taking the lead on this to address customer demands. There is therefore a pressing need to establish the charging infrastructure and software to support these eHGVs and operators, and a clear opportunity to build this such that it provides V2G services optimally. Further, the above-mentioned eHGVs about to launch on UK roads all support the new Megawatt Charging System (MCS) standard, which natively supports V2G (in contrast to the vast majority of electric cars currently on the roads). Our consortium of eHGV charge-point infrastructure suppliers, data-analytics providers, energy-system experts is installing the first 1MW bi-directional charging infrastructure in both MCS and CCS capabilities to capture the value that can be created by these vehicles and accelerate operator transition. This project will: * Develop MCS charging systems to enable Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) capability, the first deployment of MCS-V2G infrastructure in the UK. These chargers support both CCS and MCS standards, ensuring compatibility with current fleets while future-proofing for MCS vehicles as they become commercially available. * Collect vehicle use and battery cycling data, charge-point data, site energy load and usage data, grid power demand/pricing data, enabling development of algorithmic control systems to optimise the economics of eHGV operations by maximising the value of providing V2G services and smart operations services through data and AI. * Develop the V2G protocols, that will manage and optimise the charging and discharge back to the grid to support grid load-balancing. *Conduct a 6-month real-world trial with eHGV fleet operators to demonstrate the economic value of V2G-enabled CCS charging. MCS-capable vehicles will be integrated into the trial as they become commercially available, enabling a seamless transition to next-generation high-power charging.