Businesses across Scotland will receive a share of £720,000 to support the decarbonisation of heavy duty vehicles.
The Can Do Zero Emissions Heavy Duty Vehicles (HDV) challenge call was launched in July by Transport Scotland and Scottish Enterprise to help businesses develop innovative solutions to decarbonise transport and aid Scotland’s green recovery - and CeeD ran a well-attended webinar on the challenge call with Scottish Enterprise in August 2021.
Successful projects include bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis, clean hydrogen technology innovators Logan Energy and Flexergy, to electric vehicle charging specialists such as Swarco and Boyd Brothers as well as energy technology innovators Energy Mutual.
Ideas cover a range of projects from hydrogen forecourts, charging, battery innovation, as well as logistics and a project to charge vehicles using trams.
Head of Low Carbon Transition for Scottish Enterprise Andy McDonald said:
“The zero emission heavy duty vehicles projects will provide support for businesses to innovate in this transport space whilst also helping meet net zero targets.
“I’m impressed by the range of projects, both from established companies and start-ups, setting out to solve key challenges for large vehicles from buses to bin lorries and all the technology in between addressing charging, batteries, logistics and storage. “We really are on a route to net zero with these projects.”
Minister for Transport Graeme Dey said:
“I’m really pleased that Transport Scotland is working in partnership with Scottish Enterprise to jointly provide up to £720,000 for the decarbonisation of heavy duty vehicles through their Can Do Innovation Challenge framework and competition.
“We’re absolutely committed to making travel in Scotland clean and green and supporting innovation. Further steps forward in technology to accelerate the roll out of zero emission heavy duty vehicles is an important part of that work.
“Partnership working like this is crucial if we are to achieve our world-leading climate goals and is key to pushing the international decarbonisation effort further and faster too.”
15 projects were awarded funding and CeeD would like to especially congratulate:
- Alexander Dennis who are investing in the development of a lightweight fuel efficient single deck vehicle and will undertake a technical concept study to develop a Small Lightweight Single Deck Bus.
- StorTera who were awarded grant money to look at the feasibility of lithium-sulphur flow batteries.
- HV Systems who are looking at hydrogen-electric technology in a range of vans and trucks to decarbonise the road haulage sector.
- Industrial Systems and Controls Ltd who are developing a modular energy optimisation design tool and energy management system that aims to improve battery electric and hydrogen powered vehicle performance.
- Fluxart who are looking at innovative heat exchanger designs to enable high efficiency propulsion for zero emission heavy duty vehicles and aircraft using liquid hydrogen.
- AMTE Power who will take forward a project around Li-ion pouch cells and is developing a modular design that can provide system voltage and capacity through its ScotHeavy project.