Electric Vehicles: Charging Stations of the Future – FEVER @ the University of Southampton Science and Engineering Day
Southampton University members of the FEVER project team exhibited and promoted a fully off-grid solution to electric vehicle (EV) charging at the recent University of Southampton Science and Engineering Day (SED) on the 15th March 2025. This was the 2nd year running that FEVER have presented at the annual University of Southampton Science and Engineering Festival (www.sotsef.co.uk), delivered as part of the national British Science Week.
Supplying the off-grid EV charger was a ground mounted 2kW solar pv array via a lead-acid based energy store and an off-grid power electronic inverter. The energy store acts as a buffer between the available solar energy generation and EV charging load, and was used to evidence charging the School of Engineering’s electric van. The charging point itself was a 7kW EV ‘wall’ charger adapted for use for off-grid application.
Figure 1: Mr Andy Westerman, Dr Bruno Arcanjo, Prof Suleiman Sharkh, Dr Ewan Fraser and Dr Amir Khazali man the FEVER stand at SED Day 2025
Members of the public visiting the stand could learn about the priorities and progress of the overall FEVER research project, now halfway through it’s 5 year programme, and have the opportunity to plug in, initiate charge (enabled and disabled via use of a matched RFID card), and ultimately stop charging, from the available off-grid power supply.
Figure 2: FEVER SED stand 2025
Attendees at the stand were able to hear and discuss what the advantages of an off-grid charging station, as envisaged by FEVER, are:
1. Avoids the significant queue, hence delay, in achieving a grid connection;
2. Avoids the costs associated with a grid connection (e.g. a 2MW project may cost £200,000);
3. Enables renewable energy developers to sell their clean energy at a premium price as a ‘fuel’ directly to EV users, rather than to the grid as electricity generation. This improves the commercial viability of renewable energy developments, and will encourage community led initiatives.
The FEVER project is actively promoting the benefits of such an off-grid, 100% renewable energy supplied, EV charging solution to the public, industry and Government, and will exhibiting at the forthcoming All-Energy Exhibition and Conference, 14th and 15th May 2025, SEC, Glasgow, https://www.all-energy.co.uk/.