How do we take the fast track to the fossil-free transport of the future?
Innovation Skåne together with the project Evolution Road arranged the conference Charging Ahead: The Electrification in Transportation Infrastructure It was held in March in Lund. The commencement speaker was Professor David Cebon of Cambridge University. David Cebon showed calculations for how the expansion of electric roads to different extents combined with different battery sizes would affect the range and profitability of electric vehicles in an area around London — and thus pointed to electric roads as a possible partial solution for the transport of the future.
During the conference, a summary of the current state of the transition of transport in Sweden and internationally was presented in order to reach the various sustainability goals for the climate transition. That's the sSwedish Research Institute RISE which, together with a group of researchers, has made an analysis based on a compilation of the latest international research in charging infrastructure. This meta-study presented by Jakob Rogstadius, senior researcher at the research institute RISE. The presentation discusses not only charging infrastructure such as electric roads, but also how vehicles can be rebuilt to replace fossil-powered engines with electric ones and how electric motors can be supplied with smaller batteries if combined with electric roads. (Jakob Rogstadius Mats Alaküla Lina Nordin Patrick Plötz Francisco J. Márquez-Fernández “2035 Joint Impact Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Reducing Pathways for EU Road Transport”)
A little about the rest of the content:
Michael Bayer on E.ON talked about the fact that there are already both environmentally friendly and affordable solutions for energy production and storage through solar panels and batteries - but that it is time to act now, because development is moving enormously fast, for example, in China.
In order to reduce emissions from transport, a change in behaviour may also be necessary. This was highlighted by Maria Stenström, responsible for mobility and behavioural issues at 2030 Secretariat, in his lecture. Some solutions could be to start focusing on what transport needs really exist or to plan the city in a better way so that fewer transports are necessary.
Norway is a country that already has a large share of electric cars, and according to Lars Lund Godboldt, an adviser at the Norwegian Electric Car Association, it may be too late for Norway to invest in electric roads for passenger cars in that country. There are already plenty of charging facilities here, and this combined with the fact that Norway is a country with great distances may mean that there are fewer areas where it would be appropriate to have electric roads.
The participants also had the opportunity to make a site visit to the electric road at Getingvägen in Lund in order to be able to see for themselves how the technology works and to take part in the results of the tests carried out since 2020. The project for an electric road on Getingvägen in Lund is now coming to an end, and the project has gathered extensive knowledge of how the electric road could be a partial solution when fossil fuels are to be phased out. Participants were also allowed to visit Elonroad, the company behind the technology used on Getingvägen.
Partners in the Evolution road project are Elon RoadAB, LTH, Innovation Skåne AB, Kraftringen Energi AB, Lund Municipality, RambolLab, Skånetrafiken, Solaris Sverige AB and National Road and Transport Research Institute, VTI
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Lift for electric roads at a crowded and successful conference
Videos and PDFs from the conference can be viewed on Evolution Road's website
