Electric vehicle charging and energy storage system (EVC-EES) to combine electrification of transport to global electricity access in a rural area of Rwanda connected to a mini-grid

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Innovate UK
Innovate UK

£122,896

March 31, 2020

Sept. 29, 2020

Like most countries, Rwanda has been confronted with the effects of a changing climate in recent years with floods resulting from heavy rainfalls. Rwanda pledged to reduce emissions relative to business as-usual scenario emission levels by 2030. Rwanda has a National Electrification Plan (NEP) to provide global access to electricity. In 2019, 51% of population had electricity. The NEP's target is to achieve 100% electricity access by 2024.

In Rwanda, the sources of income of the community living in rural areas of Rwanda are agriculture and livestock. Gas motorbikes and bicycles are the common modes of transportation in these villages which tends to be expensive due to fuel price and bad roads. There is a need for electric motorbikes that are tough for African roads and have high autonomy of batteries. Unexpectedly, the main concern becomes the time and power rate of charge; it needs some kind of fast charging. This EVC-ESS is the perfect solution for it.

OXTO, Gamma and Hobuka will form a consortium to build a project of an electric charging point for electric motorbikes and other types of electric vehicles in a rural area of Rwanda, connected to one of a mini-rural grid in Rwanda. The technical architecture will be composed of an innovative flywheel energy storage system (FESS) developed by OXTO and 2nd life battery packs extracted from EVs, a bidirectional AC/DC converter, an EV charger connected to the mini-grid where the system will be deployed during the phase 2.

This project will, in phase 1, study how adding a transport electrification component to rural mini-grids will improve economically and environmentally lives of local populations.

The energy storage system composed of flywheels & batteries will improve the energy efficiency of mini-grids and reduce waste of energy. This decarbonisation of transport will clearly reduce air and noise pollution. It will also reduce the risk of fuel leakage in supply chain and maintenance of gas motorbikes, a large source of water contamination.

The project addresses several UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), especially the Sustainable Cities and Communities and Climate Action. The high quality of the professionals involved in this project, mostly owning UK University degrees, combined with the disruptive innovative FESS technology, is a great chance to promote the innovation capabilities and leadership of the UK in engineering, technology and education.