Powering the Future: Insights from Interchange Live on Energy and Transport

As someone who has previously had interests in two distinct areas, future mobility and the energy sector it was genuinely insightful to attend the Interchange Live Conference.

Nicely positioned by the insightful introductory sessions, the conference was designed to bring together government, academia and industry to meet the challenges of decarbonising the transport sector and delivering overall better services to the public.

For me, there were a number of themes throughout the conference that really highlight not just the challenges, but the opportunities that the required steps (and be under no illusion, they are huge) present.

No single solution

Although not everyone agrees, it is generally considered that Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV), are the best option for passenger cars, at least for the foreseeable future while Hydrogen and potentially other options develop further.

Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGV) is where the first split is likely to occur. We will likely see both BEV and Hydrogen vehicles in use, current generation vehicles are able to travel around 150 miles while carrying 64 tonne Gross Trailer Weight, which will not be useful for long distances without changes in process. However, it is useful to point out that a large number of vehicles don’t carry heavy loads nor travel that far in a day.

Bus and Coach travel is again another area where differing requirements will drive the industry. The current generation of electric busses can travel over 150 miles, also as an industry, there is already built in opportunity to recharge at fixed defined points, combined with emerging technologies such as wireless charging at bus stops which is nearing production readiness - BEV busses can make sense.

However, there is a question mark remaining over longer distances. Some countries are looking at pantographs like electric trains with an overhead wire providing electricity when in urban environments or dedicated lanes on main routes, others are looking at Hydrogen, but the infrastructure challenges with Hydrogen remain, at least in the UK.

As you move into Marine and Aviation it becomes even less clear. My personal view is that this makes it even more exciting; as someone who loves to see technology combine with engineering, it is genuinely fascinating to see the push in both sectors. This is the same week that we see SpaceX launch the Starship test vehicle, something capable of carrying around 150 tonnes in a fully reusable ship. This is as soon as they can get it working reliably to avoid, to quote SpaceX, "Rapid Unscheduled Disasembly" - this whole idea is something that just 10 years ago seemed impossible.

There are companies such as Vertical Aerospace and Electro Flight that are working on complete aircraft or specialist components required for Electric short haul aircraft. Then on the other end of the spectrum you have Airbus working on both Electric and alternative fuel aircraft. For me, this stage of development of new technologies is the most exciting, it presents opportunities to truly change; not just the primary change but the innovations that follow. For example, Concorde had to have Fly by Wire, the technology that controls the flight controls with electronic actuators rather than manual wires and rods. This was an innovation that is the norm now but has proved to be a precursor to systems such as Autopilot.

Challenges remain and solutions require collaboration

One of the common discussion themes at the conference was regardless of the output (being directly into battery electric cars, or to produce Hydrogen) is where would the electricity come from and how would it get to where it was needed?

It is important to understand that the Grid is an incredibly complex operation, juggling while simultaneously spinning plates feels an appropriate analogy. It balances variable demand and supply which changes every second. The challenge here is that some sources of energy can react quickly while others take more time, this is why generation will always be made up of differing sources. Events like Interchange bring together experts who overall seem to agree that the grid has the planned capacity to meet the anticipated demand.

What is needed though, as demonstrated by the recent Demand Flexibility Service, is a shifting of consumer behavior's, which can be achieved manually or by using technology. As an example, charging a BEV at 5pm would cause issues. However, throughout the night there is often excess energy that National Grid ESO need to manage and make use of efficiently. Companies such as Octopus Energy already make use of time of use tariffs to encourage better energy habits, offering cheaper rates, dynamically calculated that then make use of smart chargers or direct access to a cars charging logic via API to ensure the car charges at those times.

It is these technologies and the bringing together of sectors previously not connected that creates the biggest challenges and the greatest opportunities. The use of Electric Vehicles as battery storage capacity for the grid is a great example but to make it work, car manufacturers need to finalise the standards for bi-directional charging. This then needs to be followed by the DNO’s working with the grid to ensure that the capacity is managed. Finally, energy companies need to ensure that consumers are billed correctly for the transaction and make use of the data they collected from the Smart Meters to understand expected demand. All of these things happen individually already but in order to scale, they need to work in a joined-up way.

Cyber Security Risks

Now a segway into my other area of passion and expertise - cyber security. All of the challenges and opportunities mentioned above will make use of technology. And where there is technology, there are cyber security risks. Cyber is not new to any of these sectors but these new uses will create new risks!. Securing the Smart Meter Network while allowing third party access for example, expanding this level of security to involve automakers, companies who make Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment and in some cases, energy companies is not simple. This is where strong security fundamentals, good security architecture and design is critical.

It may be just an inconvenience when a house loses power but move these issues to sectors such as Healthcare and supporting infrastructure, the impact suddenly becomes significantly more important. As an example, backup generators are almost always network connected for monitoring, maintenance etc - now we can start to see the scale of the potential disruption. These legacy organisations in the past have rarely taken cyber security seriously, it was generally was not targeted so investment in cyber was low. But as we move more to require electricity, I have no doubt the grid and the wider electricity supplies will be targeted by bad actors. Something which we have actively seen in the UK in recent weeks from hostile nation state aggressors.

So now is the time to consider how we build cyber security into new initiatives as default and fix legacy issues before its too late.

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