National Highways testing ‘kinetic battery’ for motorway chargers

National Highways is trialling a ‘kinetic battery’ system to support high-speed EV charging at motorway service stations.

The body responsible for key routes in England and Wales has partnered with British firm Levistor to test the flywheel energy storage system (FESS) alongside other methods of energy generation and storage.

The system will undergo its first commercial product trials at National Highways’ test and development centre at Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire, alongside battery and solar products in 2025.

The system is designed to support the charging network in areas where the existing grid network struggles to support multiple ultra-rapid charging devices. Some motorway service operators, including Moto, have raised concerns that the energy supply is insufficient in some areas to meet the rising demand for high-powered chargers.

The FESS, originally developed at City, University of London, stores up energy from the grid during periods of low demand. This energy is then rapidly released through a standard EV charging point, providing a short-term power boost.

Matt Journee, chief executive of Levistor: “National Highways’ readiness to trial our commercial product is a strong endorsement of our R&D work to date and highlights the grid constraint challenges that need to be overcome if the EV roll-out in the UK is to be truly nationwide. Our system offers a solution to National Highways, the electricity network operators and charge point operators.”

Christopher Plumb, energy team leader at National Highways said: “This trial will help showcase the product’s ability to overcome grid constraints and enable super-fast EV charging. This kind of innovative solution offers great potential to help improve the EV charging network and ultimately help accelerate the widespread adoption of electric vehicles supporting our journey to Net Zero Highways.”