My Electric Avenue begins to disseminate project findings

Fri 03 July 2015 View all news

My Electric Avenue, the pioneering project examining if local electricity networks can cope with charging a cluster of electric vehicles (EVs) at peak times, has exceeded its initial targets, recruiting over 100 Nissan LEAFs on My Electric Avenue’s ‘technical’ cluster trials, plus over 100 LEAFs on the project’s social trials. There are over 200 people driving Nissan LEAFs as part of the project which is now entering its reporting phase.

Some initial results from the project were presented at the LowCVP's Annual Conference in late June. Participants in the project have driven their Nissan LEAF EVs more than 2.7 million km in less than 18 months – almost the equivalent of driving to the moon and back eight times.

My Electric Avenue, which is an Ofgem Low Carbon Networks Fund project, is testing a new technology, Esprit, which can control the charging of EVs if the local electricity grid becomes overloaded. The project needed groups of neighbours to come together and each lease an all-electric Nissan LEAF for 18 months, with an original target based on ten neighbours in a cluster, and ten clusters around Britain.

Over the next six months My Electric Avenue will be disseminating its findings so that energy companies, car manufacturers and others can learn from the project.

Preliminary data published by the project includes:

  • 94,000: The number of hours that the social trial participants have charged their EVs for.
  • 20,000: The number of hours of technical trial participants’ EV charging data recorded by the Esprit technology.
  • 17,000: The number of times that the Esprit technology has curtailed charging.
  • 5.2%: The percentage of total recorded charging time for which curtailment has operated.

Sales of cars with ‘plug-in’ capability are continuing to rise. A recent survey by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that 5% of respondents said that they were thinking about buying an electric car or van. A recent survey of over 300 experts in the low carbon vehicle sector by the LowCVP found that nearly half of this group expect their next car to be a battery electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle. 

My Electric Avenue is also the first trial that directly controls domestic EV charging to prevent underground cables, overhead lines and substations being overloaded. The project aims to prove a solution that would avoid the need to dig up the roads to install higher capacity electric cables.

My Electric Avenue is being delivered by EA Technology. Other project partners are Scottish and Southern Energy Power Distribution Limited (SSEPD) (the host Distribution Network Operator, or DNO), Nissan (EV supplier), Fleetdrive Electric (EV rental programme management), Zero Carbon Futures (charging point network developer) and Northern Powergrid (participating DNO).

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