Oxford City Council has taken delivery of its first electric vehicles (EVs) as part of a project taking an integrated approach to decarbonising power, heat and transport across the city, known as Energy Superhub Oxford (ESO).

Six EVs have been added to Oxford City Council’s wholly-owned company, Oxford Direct Services (ODS),a Local Authority Trading Company which provides services for Oxford City Council and also operates commercially, including building and maintaining the built environment. ODS added the new vehicles to its fleet and will add 27 more vehicles (including cars, a street sweeper, excavator, and mix of different sized vans) over the next 3-4 months. It aims to electrify 25% of its 330 fleet by 2023.

ESO – a three-year £41 million project which has received £10 million from the government’s Prospering from the Energy Revolution Challenge – funded the vehicles. ESO is led by Oxford City Council and EDF Renewables’ Pivot Power and includes Habitat Energy, Invinity Energy Systems (previously redT energy), Kensa Contracting and the University of Oxford.

Pivot Power is installing a 25MW charging network via an 8km private wire network around the south of Oxford which will connect public charging facilities at Redbridge Park & Ride directly to National Grid’s high voltage transmission network.  It aims to include 20 charge points ranging from rapid (50kW+) to ultra-rapid (150kW+), capable of charging a car in 15-50 minutes, and 30 fast charge points (min 7kW) which can charge a car over a period of hours, for example while Park & Ride users are at work or shopping in the city centre.

A 50MW lithium-ion battery and a 2MW vanadium redox flow battery, supplied by Invinity Energy Systems, will share the grid connection with the private wire network.