Doros Nicolaides
Wireless Electric Charge-on-the-move: An appraisal of the potential for the UK Transport Application
| It is officially stated that, carbon dioxide emissions from the transport sector in UK accounted one quarter of all carbon emissions in 2013. As a major source of air pollution, not only does it undermine healthy environments but also deteriorates issues in relevance with climate change. This coupled with the inevitable growth of population and vehicles the shifting towards a more sustainable transport sector is imperative. Different scenarios have been developed for enhancing mobility while eliminating severe consequences of transportation and interestingly, all of them highlight the crucial role of electric cars as part of the solution. However, the successful penetration of electric cars is constrained by significant diachronic product barriers which comprise high purchase and maintenance cost due batteries, limited mileage range, and high recharging -time. Wireless electric charge-on-the-move technology can reject the adverse characteristics of electric cars and facilitate their dominance on the roads of UK. It is about an idea whereby wireless power chargers will be installed along the transport grid of UK with the purpose to provide energy to moving electric cars. The owners will not worry about the mileage range since their cars will be charged dynamically but more importantly, batteries with considerably lower capacity can be exploited instead of the bulky, heavy and expensive ones used for current applications. This means that not only will the cars’ performance be improved significantly due to lower weight and smaller volume but also the cost will be reduced dramatically. Consequently, wireless electric charge-on-the-move technology will establish the consumer preference for electric cars over combustion engine vehicles and drive the shifting towards a more efficient and lower-carbon transport sector in the future. To this end, the primary objective of the project is to determine whether charge -on-the- move idea is technically feasible and based on a suitable enginee ring sustainable context. An extensive examination has been conducted to identify all the technical elements and necessary prerequisites for introducing wireless chargers and simultaneously, economic, social and environmental concerns were addressed to assess the sustainability agenda of the proposal. The critical review of the associated technology portfolio combined with the analysis of government statistical data, emerged a novel argument on the field of sustainable transportation. By synthesising previously unrelated facts and enriching our comprehension through personal interviews we have developed potential scheme solutions which compose the baseline of further research. The adequate development of the existing technology at the level of individual wir eless chargers makes the scalability of the expertise available at the national magnitude of UK. Safe, easy to use, and approachable for everyone this technology should be at the forefront of sustainability actions without undermining human well -being and implying social considerations. Carbon emission reductions around 94% and 80% could be observed due to single car and total car fleet usage respectively and the economic appraisal of the proposal has revealed a great potential for the UK transport application. Indeed, the estimated expenditure required for introducing dynamic charging on the roads of UK based on the basic scenario ranges from £2m to £3m per mile according to type of road and power distribution design. |