Public Funding for Ubeeqo UK Limited

The Movers and Shapers project investigates the feasibility of an innovative business model where an eco-car club provides environmentally-friendly mobility ('Movers') while also helping electricity networks to operate more efficiently by demand shaping ('Shapers'). It achieves this by scheduling the recharging of its Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) to respond to variations in electricity tariff, which encourage power demand at times of high renewable energy yield or low power demand (e.g. at night). The same price incentives would also prompt the car club to produce hydrogen fuel by electrolysis for a potential fleet of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs), which have longer range than BEVs. For each journey, car club members can hire whichever of these vehicle types is the most suitable. This tariff arrangement enables cost savings for the car club, while helping electricity networks to accommodate more low-carbon generators, like wind and solar power. Thus, a symbiotic relationship links power and transport sectors to improve efficiency, cost, quality of service and access to mobility, while reducing noise and pollution.

GreenSCIES2 will produce a detailed design for a smart energy system to integrate new low carbon energy technologies across heat, power and transport that can be replicated across the UK. Building on learnings from the GreenSCIES1 feasibility study, the expanded consortium will develop innovative technical/business models for the provision of smart energy systems that significantly reduce whole system costs of energy, carbon emissions and result in significantly smaller bills for the end consumer. The smart energy grid will also help provide affordable warmth and reduce local pollution, with a clear path for replication elsewhere in the UK. The scheme concept is already seen as one of THE key future energy solutions for low carbon cities. The detailed design will provide an ultra-low 5th generation heat network with distributed low carbon heat pumps to supply heating/cooling using an ambient loop to exchange energy between buildings, enabling recovery of low-grade waste heat from data centres and the tube. Each of the decentralised energy centres will provide hubs for PV electricity supply, EV V2G charging/storage alongside large scale batteries. The hubs can then be used for Demand Side Response to flex with the electricity grid requirements/tariffs using a sophisticated AI based control system. This will be the first large smart energy system in the UK that integrates energy technologies across heat, power and transport, allowing wide-scale replication. This project is focussed in the London Borough of Islington but involves proving replication in the West Midlands and Sheffield. The project involves a large number of LBI residential blocks but also includes two data centres, a TFL ventilation shaft and a range of public/commercial buildings. GreenSCIES2 will also develop innovative business models for the provision of 'energy as a service' that help change consumer behaviour to reduce carbon emissions. This will be a community-based project with wide stakeholder engagement including local residents and businesses but also with policy makers and replicators. Research objectives include establishing a new replicable design methodology to reach smart energy systems. Also delivering legacy though a new academic 'Centre of Excellence' around heat networks and smart grids with extensive knowledge transfer through conferences, papers, and International engagement. GreenSCIES2 will deliver a detailed design which minimises technical/commercial risk/uncertainty, with commercial agreements in place and is 'shovel-ready' for implementation. This is an entirely innovative ground breaking project that will provide an investable low carbon scheme unique to the UK.

"This project involves providing low cost, highly efficient smart energy systems for local communities. It builds upon a district scheme at Bunhill in Islington whereby heat from a London Underground ventilation shaft is used to provide heating for local residents - providing low cost and low carbon energy. This project considers a number of additional secondary energy sources which could be integrated into a smart grid. This includes heat from substations, sewers, supermarkets, canals, cable tunnels and data centres. The smart grid also includes battery storage and electric vehicle to grid points working with the electrical supply grid to make the most of intermittent renewable energy and ensure that consumers always get the best tariff. The feasibility also investigates the business models and legal frameworks associated with the development and implementation of a complex smart system. It will work with key stakeholders in understanding views of end users and others in the supply chain. It is anticipated that this innovative project will result in significant carbon emission savings and much lower energy costs for consumers. A successful feasibility study will identify the benefits for a range of users and lead to the design of a potential demonstration project."

40% of UK population live in urban environments without access to off-street parking, so cannot install home Electric Vehicle (EV) chargers. If these people cannot access on-street charging infrastructure, we will not hit national targets for EV uptake and electrification of transport. Charging infrastructure suffers from a chicken-and-egg problem: people won't buy EVs if they cannot see that infrastructure is available, and local authorities won't install infrastructure if they cannot see demand for EVs. V2Street explores routes to break this deadlock by developing a novel consumer value proposition that uses flexibility in V2G-enabled charging to provide demand side response (DSR) services to the energy system. We estimate V2G can provide significantly more revenue from these services than unidirectional charging. Our objectives are to use this value stream to create an integrated consumer proposition. Residual revenue from DSR services then supports investment in charging infrastructure. To develop this integrated proposition, we will define a range of consumer propositions and business models based on modelling of revenue that DSR flexibility can create. We will test these propositions with consumers, analyse their impacts on energy system and urban infrastructure, and develop prototypes of an integrated chargepoint-EV-cloud system to deliver the services. We will then undertake a second, focused phase of consumer research using these prototypes. This will provide robust data on technical performance and consumer acceptance, positioning us to develop future, larger-scale trials. V2Street's vision is to break the chicken-and-egg deadlock, triggering a "virtuous circle" of infrastructure investment and EV uptake. V2Street will give confidence to energy system stakeholders (suppliers, distribution network operators (DNOs), National Grid) to develop service requirements that exploit the flexibility of V2G. This in turn will give confidence to participants in chargepoint supply chains to invest in charging infrastructure. The V2Street consortium covers two complete supply chains, from vehicle manufacturer to chargepoint operator, local authority and consumer, and from consumer to energy flexibility aggregator, DNO and supplier. It combines highly innovative SMEs at key points in the supply chains with large companies with the depth of resources needed to support exploitation at scale. Major academic institutions ensure we gather robust consumer research and solid evidence to frame transport and energy policy to address this key challenge to EV uptake.

The promise of flexible mobile energy storage & supply through V2G is no less than to turn each vehicle into a net carbon reducer. The challenge is to create a market mechanism that allows these benefits to be realised with business cases for EV operators and grid/energy users. E-FLEX will create a scale demonstration of a functioning V2G market. It will combine a number of fleets with variable duty cycles, a mixed hardware ecology, and diverse energy users (grid plus facilities) with a market design that captures as much value as possible as private benefit. E-FLEX will involve a mix of urban (London) fleets (parcel delivery, car sharing, police and heath service vehicles), totalling 200 EVs. The first phase will be oriented at fixed scheduling against known end user demand. The second phase will demonstrate a dynamic (near-real time) market operation. Vehicle use and V2G cycles will be fully monitored for analysis of market operation, including adoption, use, cost of operation, value captured, and battery and vehicle performance.

This project and our consortium of partners will focus on the business models which will enable the sharing of the value V2G can bring to the grid, local and regional businesses and of course the consumer. Ultimately we are looking to define and test scaleable business models which will link our technology ( existing and new) to a range of new service models. Our partners are ATKearney, Cenex, e-Carclub, Warick University,University of Nottingham, Honda, Slamjam, Nottingham City Council, Leeds City Council, Forward Utility. and a mix of local SME's. We will take an airport such as (Liverpool John Lennon Airport or Gatwick)as our primary demonstrator for 100 EV's connected and parked at the Airport and enable them through our technology to be used as an aggregated battery storage. The consumers of the vehicles will be able to monetise through the trading to the grid and our App will allow them full control of these parameters of trading. The output of the project is to help the current and future EV consumers monetise their investment while accelerating the take up of EV's in UK through this trading monetisation. Our V2G solution will be EV car maker agnostic and will inform the necessary scale from the 100 demonstrator to large scale deployment across the country and Internationally.

This study will assess the potential for islands to decarbonise their power and transport markets. The ultimate aim is to deploy V2G technology to make the islands totally self-sufficient for energy and maximise the export of zero carbon power through the interconnector to the mainland. The principal output of the project will be an optimised business model in support of a new business which combines energy and transport in a single product to customers at an attractive price. Subsidiary output includes software capable of signalling to connected EVs to charge or discharge in different scenarios.

"With a changing market in the car club and on-demand services sector, there are new opportunities emerging with bespoke electric vehicles to meet specific transport challenges. Within the design of the vehicles, new charging approaches and standards are being explored. This feasibility study seeks to determine the opportunity and impact of V2G opportunities in different usage scenarios for these new technologies and highlight the new market opportunities they can accelerate through the additional V2G funding stream."

"The Bluetooth Access Module with Broad Integration (BAMBI) project explores the real world challenges experienced over the last 5 years of EV market growth and creates an alternative technology strategy to the predominate state of the art for chargepoint controllers to manage user access and integration with chargepoint management systems. By leveraging development in IOT communication techniques, the technical capabilities/facilities of smartphones and our knowledge of the EV taxi and car club markets this project shall create a new control system design for a chargepoint that enable it to better operate in car club service provision, provide a method for users to access and pay for the use of chargepoint without any prior registration and increase the options for networking chargepoints so that they can be remotely monitored through an IOT solution rather than traditional GSM. This project shall deliver a cost effective product that reduces the overall cost of chargepoints, reduces the ongoing operational cost compared to GSM networking and offers operators of EV related business new alternative to intregrate EV charging solutions in their operations."

"This project presents a unique opportunity for a young British start-up, Brill Power, to prove the business case for its pioneering battery management control system technology, through partnering with E-Car, the UK's leading electric vehicle (EV) sharing club. Currently EV batteries degrade at an unnecessarily quick rate (which will be worsened by the introduction of rapid charging) and under EV leasing models it is the manufacturer's responsibility to replace the battery. Furthermore, EV drivers often experience range anxiety, whereby drivers are unsure of the vehicle's ability to cover certain distances due to charge levels and limited charge infrastructure. Brill Power's revolutionary battery management control system addresses these factors, specifically by increasing the life of the battery by up to 60% and increasing the range of vehicles, whereby a vehicle that started with a 200km range will still be at 180km with the Brill Power battery management control system, when a conventional system would only be at 150km. This project seeks to confirm the predicted impact of Brill Power's technology on EVs, through comparing its performance to previously unobtainable data from E-Car's 140 EV fleet. This analysis will then underpin proposition testing, to be undertaken with the key EV fleet manufacturers Nissan and Renault (Brill Power's target market), shaping the commercial and technological development of Brill Power. Overall, the project will generate significant insight into the potential role of Brill Power's intelligent BMCS in EV battery manufacture and performance."

"At 40% EV market penetration, 32% of UK local electricity networks will require intervention, with an estimated cost of £2.2bn by 2050 (EA Technologies). Clusters of EVs, such as EV car clubs' hubs, have a more significant impact on the local grid, especially when looking at peak demand, harmonics and voltage violations. V2G has the potential to reduce low voltage network upgrade requirements. In today's perspective, DNOs have no ability to harness V2G to adjust load in localised areas to avoid network faults or support in recovery from network outage/black start circumstances. In order to meet the market need for a cross sector solution, Agile Impressions (AI), Green Running (GR) and E-Car Club (E-Car) seek to establish feasibility for a Blockchain Enabled Vehicle to Local Grid (BEV2LG), implementing GR's emerging blockchain technology in the e-mobility sector, where EC and AI have a strong record delivering business-minded innovation. BEV2LG will enable EV fleet owners to export electricity back to the grid when most needed by local grids and do billing, creating a platform in which EV fleet owners can provide grid balancing services to local networks operators (DNOs) through blockchain technology. This guarantees e-mobility to benefit from: high interoperability across stakeholders, secure permissioned interaction so that various stakeholders work on one value chain, no single point of failure (decentralized, transparent, redundant and secure), and pay-as-you-go microtransactions to be profitable (no middle man). This feasibility study validates the technical and commercial potential of BEV2LG, applying cutting edge technology to unlock V2G services to benefit local networks."

The Non-intrusive vehicle monitoring system (NiVMS) project is a collaboration between AutoTrip, an innovative UK start up specialising in automated business mileage reporting, and E-Car Club, the UK's first fully electric vehicle car club and member of the Europcar Group. Collectively the consortium bring a combined decade's worth of experience in the connected automotive sector, and boasts a strong track record in technological innovation especially with regards to delivery of software projects. This 18 month technical project seeks to establish the technical and commercial potential of harnessing machine learning intelligence to improve operational efficiencies and where possible achieve cost savings in the UK's business fleet sector.

From 3,500 electric vehicles ("EVs") sold in 2013, the UK market has surged to >76,000 sales by 2016 (Next Green Car). Expected to account for 60% of UK new car sales by 2030, mass electrification of mobility poses considerable changes for electricity networks, an extra 20GW of peak demand (EFES). E-mobility innovators Agile Impressions and E-Car Club, the UK's first fully electric pay as you drive car club, designed a novel solution intended to meet the market need for EV electricity demand management - Storage Enabled Vehicle Charge Point ("SEVCP"). A proposed feasibility study will undertake a complimentary package of technical and commercial development research to refine an initial concept, validate feasibility and synergise the proposition with the emerging market need.

Our proposed solution puts delivery drivers and companies in control of their vehicle needs without the need for holding a large scale fleet. The solution links suppliers such delivery drivers, by intelligently matching work rotas with the most expensive tool for the job, the vehicle. The product will permit approved delivery drivers to access appropriate vehicles on a regular or ad hoc short term basis at the times they need it. This model supports drivers who do not have a car or require a specific vehicle type (i.e. particular van size/delivery bike) at a certain time. It supports peer-to-peer sharing of assets alongside traditional vehicle sharing or hire options to provide the right vehicles at the right time. By providing flexibility of service, the traditional delivery modes can be shifted, allowing greater interaction between transport modes alongside more flexible and sustainable delivery models. E-Car is the UK’s first entirely electric pay-per-use car club, developed to provide members of carefully selected communities across the UK with access to full-sized electric cars by the hour. In July 2015, E-Car was acquired by Europcar Group, Europe’s largest vehicle rental and mobility solutions firm. It is well placed to commercialise the outcomes of the project.

This project will develop, establish and test ‘Mobility as a Service’ based e-mobility hubs to support the end-to- end journey. The website will form a transport integration hub facilitating journey planning and bookings for trains, buses and other local transport options. The aim is to create a viable mechanism for actively encouraging behaviour change to the more sustainable e-mobility hub modes while integrating transport services to provide convenient transport choices for passengers to enhance end-to-end journey options.

E-Car is the UK’s first entirely electric pay-per-use car club, developed to provide members of carefully selected communities across the UK with access to full-sized electric cars by the hour. Pilot operations commenced in September 2012 and have proven to be an operational success with over 5000 journeys completed and high levels of customer satisfaction in both consumerled and business-led (i.e. fleet replacement) schemes. Conventional car clubs have a primary focus on consumers. E-Car is pursuing a differentiated strategy through focussing on areawide schemes which combine fleet replacement schemes for corporates, councils and other public sector bodies with private usage. The recently completed TSB Proof of Concept pilot developed and demonstrated the electric car scheduling algorithms which maximised vehicle utilisation by blending weekday business use with evening and weekend private use. These proprietary algorithms allowed required levels of vehicle availability to be maintained for both user groups through a combination of demand matching, smart vehicle allocation and adaptive charging cycles. However, existing car club IT systems for these mixed-use operations do not operate effectively with an electric fleet; the recent pilot required manual workarounds that will prove unviable as the company scales operations. This development of prototype project aims to iteratively develop and test a new scheduling and vehicle management system which will allow vehicles to be allocated efficiently at higher utilisation levels whilst still maintaining the requisite levels of availability. Successful completion of the project will not only allow E-Car to scale commercial operations but also accelerate deployment of electric vehicles for business and personal use, support the development of the UK’s EV supply chain, reduce carbon and particulate emissions, and have a profound impact on local mobility.

This project is aimed at creating e-mobility hubs and providing a demonstrator project of their use and potential impact. E-mobility hubs are defined as combining electric vehicle charging points, electric car club, bike and e-bikes for hire from a single location situated at key transport nodes, bookable from a single website

E-Car is the UK’s first entirely electric pay-per-use car club, developed to provide members of carefully selected communities across the UK with access to full-sized electric cars by the hour at a competitive price point. Pilot operations commenced in September 2012 and have proven to be an operational success with over 600 journeys completed and high levels of consumer satisfaction in both consumerled and business-led (i.e. fleet replacement) schemes. Recognising the underlying economic and environmental benefits for corporates switching to electric vehicles, the long term development strategy includes a strong focus on fleet replacement schemes. In addition, we have identified customer interest in mixed-use models. These combine complimentary user groups to maximise asset utilisation, for instance combining weekday business use with evening and weekend private use. However, for these mixed-use models to operate effectively with an electric fleet, a new scheduling model is required which allows required levels of vehicle availability to be maintained for both user groups through a combination of demand matching, smart vehicle allocation and adaptive charging cycles. This proof of concept project aims to iteratively develop and trial a new scheduling solution which will allow vehicles to be allocated efficiently at higher utilisation levels whilst still maintaining the requisite levels of availability. In doing so E-Car will simultaneously establish operating precedent for up to 3 new mixed-use models (Corporate/Community; Council/Local Business; Registered Social Landlord/Social Housing Resident). Successful completion of the project will not only allow E-Car to begin commercial mixed-use operations at scale, but also accelerate deployment of electric vehicles for business and personal use, support the development of the UK’s EV supply chain, reduce carbon and particulate emissions, and have a profound impact on local mobility.

Following a successful ‘Proof of Market’ research undertaken with support from the Technology Strategy Board’s Smart Scheme, a new limited company has been formed with the intention of demonstrating full proof of concept for the use of plug-in electric vehicles in pay-per-use community car clubs. E-Car Club Ltd will be the UK’s first wholly electric pay-per-use community car club. From over 100 expressions of interest from communities’ nationwide, 8 representative pilot communities have been shortlisted for inclusion in the ‘Proof of Concept’ programme. Detailed screening was undertaken against 8 key criteria including population density, local demand scores and transport inter-modality. To date the proposition has been positively received by central government, local authorities, proposed supply chain partners and community members alike. “As both the mayor and a community leader I would be honoured to join as a founder member to help set an example and I am very happy to give you a massive endorsement in the local press – this is the way forward and we need you in our town” – Mayor, Shortlisted E-Car Community The intention of the ‘Proof of Concept’ pilot is to establish successful operating precedent for a community orientated electric vehicle car club, and in doing so overcome consumer reticence regarding range and vehicle performance as well as operator concerns regarding integration of the ‘charge time’ variable and the hurdle utilisation rates required to deliver a positive gross contribution from higher CAPEX electric hubs. Successful completion of the project will not only facilitate the launch of E-Car as a fully commercial car club in its own right, but accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles under the car club model across the country. This supports the national EV supply chain development, reduces carbon emissions by up to 120,000 tonnes pa directly and 4 million tonne pa indirectly, and have a profound impact upon local mobility.