National Highways is to begin commercial trials of energy storage technology as it looks to offer super-fast EV charging across the UK motorway network.
Trials of the high-power, durable energy storage technology from British firm Levistor will get underway in early 2025 at National Highways’ test and development centre at Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire.
Levistor’s flywheel energy storage system (FESS), or ‘kinetic battery’, provides a short-term power boost to the grid wherever extra energy is needed to charge an EV.
This enables an EV driver to get 100 miles of range with a five-minute charge.
Levistor’s flywheel, originally developed at City, University of London, stores up energy from the grid during periods of low demand.
This energy is then rapidly released through a standard EV charging point, allowing drivers to be on their way again quickly.
The Levistor flywheel can be easily connected to the local grid and has been designed to be quickly deployed above or below ground singularly or in multiples.
Matt Journee, chief executive of Levistor, said, “National Highways’ readiness to trial our commercial product is a strong endorsement of our R&D work to date and highlights the grid constraint challenges that need to be overcome if the EV roll-out in the UK is to be truly nationwide.
“Our system offers a solution to National Highways, the electricity network operators and charge point operators.”
Christopher Plumb, energy team leader at National Highways, said, “This kind of innovative solution offers great potential to help improve the EV charging network and ultimately help accelerate the widespread adoption of electric vehicles supporting our journey to Net Zero Highways.”
