The e-motorway, the initial one of such a thing in the world, might pave the way for Sweden to add an additional 3,000 km of electrical highways by 2045.
The EU approved a landmark regulation last month requiring that all new automobiles sold have no carbon footprints starting in 2035, and as a result, European nations are scrambling to set up the infrastructure required for mobility without the use of fossil fuels.
The very first of this sort in the world, a motorway in Sweden is currently being converted to a permanent electric road.
Cars and trucks may recharge while travelling on an electric road.
Dynamic charging, according to experts, enables them to travel farther with smaller batteries and avoid stopping at recharge points.
Through a number of pilot projects, including the first brief electric road in history, the Scandinavian nation was a pioneer in electrifying roads.
Jan Pettersson, Director of Strategic Development at Trafikverket, the Swedish transit agency, told Euronews Next that his organisation believes electrification is the best option for further decarbonizing the transport industry. “We are working with a number of solutions,” Pettersson added.
In the heart of the nation’s three largest cities, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö, the selected highway, European route E20, links logistical hubs between Hallsberg and Rebro.
What is the mechanism?
The project will be completed by 2025 and is now in the procurement stage.
There are three different charging systems: catenary system, inductive system, and conductive system. The charging technique for E20 has not yet been chosen.
In order to decarbonize the transportation industry, we believe the electrification approach is the best course of action.
Heavy-duty trucks are the only ones that can use the catenary system. because it provides electricity to a certain type of bus or tram using overhead wires.
In 2018, Trafikverket launched the first electric vehicle charging rail on public roads in the world as a pilot between the Arlanda airport in Stockholm and a logistics hub in Rosersberg.
Electric trucks can lower a movable arm that receives electricity on an electrical rail that has been carved into the asphalt along a 2-kilometer stretch.
Conductive charging functions similarly to a smartphone charging pad. These unique electric automobiles include a pad or plate on the road that, when the vehicle is parked on top of it, wirelessly charges the vehicle instead of requiring a plug-in charger.
The electric vehicle’s coil receives power from specialised equipment installed beneath the road as part of the inductive charging system. The vehicle’s coil then employs the energy to replenish the battery.
In the island city of Visby, it constructed a wireless electric road for large trucks and buses in 2020.
This Swedish company wants to put autonomous vehicles on the highways in response to a scarcity of drivers throughout the world.
Possibilities for private vehicles
The maintenance of heavy vehicle charging, according to Pettersson, is a “special challenge” for the entire world.
Heavy-duty trucks will require enormous amounts of batteries to be carried, he said, if static charging complete battery solutions are all that are used. Although the Electric Road System (ERS) primarily targets trucks, a recent study found that personal vehicles might also gain from it.
The study indicated that combining home charging with dynamic charging can lower the size of the battery by up to 70%. The study mimicked the motion behaviours of 412 privately driven cars on portions of Swedish national and European roadways.
According to the study’s authors, just 25% of Sweden’s roads have to be electrified for the system to properly function well; the remaining 75% can remain as is.
The electric road system (ERS) was being simulated for the first time using actual driving patterns.
However, the researchers note that not everyone may benefit from the ERS.
Faster than vehicles and subways, the world’s fastest electric “flying” ferry will make travelling in Stockholm possible.
According to Dr. Washim Shoman, Researcher at the Physical Resource Theory division at the Chalmers University of Technology, “the required better range with ERS differs from urban to rural residence, hence, drivers who reside near the town centre would have smaller batteries because they are closer to the ERS and will benefit more.”
According to Shoman, there may be a 20% variation in battery life between these two sorts of tenants.
Additionally, he notes that the study makes certain assumptions and that the technology is still in its infancy.
But I believe they could purchase such properties if they grew sufficiently, he added.
The development of ERS systems is intensifying in other nations like Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, and India.
Sweden has teamed up with Germany and France to share knowledge through authority as well as study agreements on electric roads, with hopes to have an additional 3,000 km of electrified roads by 2045.
France intends to purchase a pilot stretch with an electric road, while Germany and Sweden have demonstration infrastructure on public roads that have been in operation for a while.
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