Coming Soon

« Company Overview
358,742
2021-08-01 to 2022-03-31
Collaborative R&D
Municipal and commercial fleet managers are under pressure to transition to a zero-carbon operation, but often lack the necessary resources, tools and experience to do so. The aim of this project is to help fleets transition to electric successfully and more cheaply, whilst also streamlining EV fleet operations once electrification is implemented. The product from this project will provide a single system that enables EV fleet management to account for vehicle data (e.g. charge levels) as well as vehicle allocation and task scheduling to drivers. This system will allow fleet managers to do the following two things for the first time: - Assign vehicles to tasks based on current charge levels and expected consumption - Assign EV chargers to vehicles (at the depot or off-site), based on charger speed and grid availability as well as upcoming tasks for the next days. We are basing this scope on the outcomes of a feasibility study, as part of which we interviewed numerous fleet managers, and other energy stakeholders in the UK, about their key decarbonisation challenges. To answer the challenges they raised, our tool will: 1) Reduce infrastructure costs by using fewer EV chargers across a fleet, as only vehicles that need charging to meet their immediate workload would have to be plugged in (expected threefold reduction of chargers and infrastructure capacity compared to traditional 1charger/1vehicle today). 2) Reduce operational costs by charging vehicles at times of low electricity costs and allowing vehicle-to-grid transfer for peak times. 3) Integrate vehicle charge data to fleet scheduling decisions in real-time, considering driver absence, planned/unplanned maintenance. 4) Integrate with the existing systems fleet managers use, to make implementation affordable and practical, without need to change to, and learn, a completely new system. The adoption and application of the tool will reduce barriers to fleet decarbonisation, helping aid a successful UK response to net-zero carbon commitments and the UK Clean Growth Strategy. We will monitor both financial cost and carbon reduction achieved throughout the project, as well as provide an example to fleets in various levels of electrification a roadmap towards zero-carbon operations.