FEVER @ the Waitrose Farming Conference 2024
The FEVER project team were delighted to be invited to exhibit their ‘demonstration’ off-grid EV charging solution at the recent Waitrose Farming Conference 2024[1], on the John Lewis Partnership Leckford Estate, on Wednesday 8th May 2024.
[1] https://www.johnlewispartnership.media/news/waitrose/08052024/waitrose-unveils-plans-to-accelerate-nature-friendly-farming-for-british-farmers
The Leckford Estate, a 2,800 acre farm and country estate in Hampshire, is the Waitrose and Partners Farm (part of the John Lewis Partnership) and was the beautiful location for the Waitrose Farming Conference 2024, the first in-person Waitrose farming conference since 2019 and focussed on supporting more than 2,000 of its British farmers to move to nature-friendly farming practices.
This was therefore a fitting event and venue for FEVER to again promote its developing solution for off-grid electric vehicle charging stations, by live demonstration of the recharging of an electric van.
The FEVER system comprised a 2kW solar photovoltaic array, supplying an off-grid power electronic inverter, that in turn stored energy within a 14.4 kWh lead-acid based energy store (as an example of the ‘Off-Vehicle Energy Store (OVES)’ that is central to the FEVER concept). This energy store is not currently a hybridised form i.e. it currently comprises only one form of battery rather than a hybrid of different electrical energy storage chemistries, however is the current portable and demonstrable system for such events.
The energy store then provides the electrical supply for a 3kW EV charging point, used to recharge a University electric Peugeot E-Expert van.
FEVER Demonstration EV charging system at Leckford Estate
Attendees at the Farming Conference, comprising farmers, farming equipment suppliers and related industries, are acutely aware of the use and value of renewable energy use on farms, which are major consumers of energy e.g. a dairy farm surveyed in 2020 used 134,000 kWh of electricity[1], and are very aware and keen to seek cheaper and more sustainable energy supplies.
A recent report by NationalGridESO[2], the UK’s Electricity System Operator, flags that the grid demand in the UK is set to rise by up to 65% by 2035, and is seeking significant investment costs to help decarbonise the grid by facilitating connection of some 23 GW of offshore wind. This is in addition to growing concerns over the energy needs for generative AI data centres, where data centres already account for over a fifth of Ireland’s electricity demand and that studies predict the AI industry could consume as much energy as the Netherlands by 2027[3].
The FEVER team believes that this level of future electrical load analysis has not taken consideration of the potential to move relevant electrical load off-grid, for example such as EV charging demand, hence avoiding adding to the national grid connection and control concerns. Off-grid solutions rely on robust, cost-effective electrical energy stores, the key research focus of FEVER investigating development of hybrid energy stores comprising, for example, lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries integrated with flow cell batteries, capable of both short-term cycling and longer term (possibly seasonal) storage.
Future outreach and demonstration activities of the FEVER project are being pursued and will be both promoted and reported on in due course.
[1] https://ahdb.org.uk/knowledge-library/an-overview-of-the-cost-of-energy
[2] https://www.nationalgrideso.com/future-energy/beyond-2030
[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68664182