GeoPura, based in Wysall, Nottinghamshire, is harnessing the power of hydrogen to offer a zero emissions answer to how we’re going to generate and distribute the vast amount of energy required to power the UK’s growing number of Electric Vehicles (EVs).
GeoPura has chosen today (20 June), Clean Air Day, to officially unveil their new website that explains how they will make any car park a renewable energy fuel station generating 100% emissions free off-grid electricity and powering unlimited numbers of charging points.
This offers huge opportunity for the future development of city centres. Car parks can generate emission-free electricity and encourage emission-free vehicles to their sites supporting clean air targets and boosting local retail, hospitality and leisure venues with an additional reason to visit.
The UK is transitioning to EVs faster than the industry originally predicted. Experts forecast that by 2025 we will have over 1 million EVs on our roads. However, if sales of EVs continue to double each year, as they have done in the last three years, there could be 10 million EVs in the UK by 2025. Each would require regular and easy access to charging points and if we want to improve air quality and reduce emissions these chargers need to be supplied with renewable energy.
GeoPura MD, Andrew Cunningham said: “Even if the most pessimistic estimates of EV sales and take-up are believed we will require a huge amount of renewable electricity to charge EV vehicles in the coming years. It’s important to understand the large amount of power driving a car requires in comparison to other everyday appliances. At times a small car requires 80 kW (or 107bhp) of useable power from its engine (whether petrol or electric), that’s similar to the power required by 80 electric heaters, and it’s currently the maximum power the UK electricity distribution network would normally allocate to a street of 40 houses!”
The UK’s electrical distribution system wasn’t designed to support the mass electrification of personal transport. Providing every household with an additional 2kW capacity to support home charging would involve doubling the size of significant parts of our existing network. A 2kW charging rate would take over 24 hours to fully charge the average EV, unacceptable to most motorists, and we need to accommodate the 40% of UK households which do not have access to private car parking.
Andrew added: “By 2030 we will need to have drastically increased our renewable generation and distribution capacity as well as having installed very large numbers of EV charging points in a significant proportion of places we would normally park. I am one of the growing number of people in the industry who are concerned about our ability to deliver this capacity through the existing electricity distribution network and that’s why I believe our solution has such potential.”
GeoPura’s model uses renewable energy, namely solar or wind, to create a liquid hydrogen-based fuel at sites throughout the UK. This fuel is then transported using emissions free road tankers and delivered to locations where a local generator converts it to electricity to power 1,000s of charging points. From start to finish it’s 100% carbon and emissions free – the only by-product is water and air – and it operates independently from the electricity network so grid constraints don’t apply and unlimited numbers of EV charging points can be offered to customers.
GeoPura will offer this technology through a flexible contract. Electricity generation capacity will be installed, serviced and supplied from the outset and the number of EV charge points increased over the length of the contract as required, with hardware upgrades provided. The GeoPura service will help car park operators smoothly develop their business model to meet the demands of the growing EV market.
Managing Director, Andrew Cunningham, officially launches the GeoPura offer for Clean Air Day.
