£1.6m funding for wireless electric van charging trial at Heriot-watt

A university on the edge of Edinburgh has received £1.6 million funding for small commercial vehicle tests next year.

The technology enables batteries to be recharged without the need for cables, speeding up the process. Vehicles are simply parked above charging pads, with a “receiver pad” attached to the bottom of the chassis sending power to the battery

Heriot-watt believes it could encourage more firms to use electric vehicles and cut emissions.

The equipment is also future proofed for potential use by autonomous vehicles which have no driver to plug in cables.

The university said wireless charging had already proved to work for buses, such as in Milton Keynes.

The joint project with the City of Edinburgh Council and Flexible Power Systems (FPS) is due to start in the spring.

The university said the project’s success could see van fleets using such chargers, which take 30-60 minutes to top up batteries. Chargers could be deployed across the country, with companies such as delivery firms able to book time slots for their vehicles. This could avert the need for vehicles to return to their depots to recharge.

Funding for the trial is from the UK Government’s Office for Low-emission Vehicles through its innovation agency Innovation UK.

City council fleet man ager Scott Millar said: “We are already deploying electric vehicles across our fleet and looking at ways we can drive adoption in the wider community. Providing charging infrastructure like shared hubs has the potential to play a key part in removing barriers to uptake.”