ŠÓ°ÉAPP

±ŹÅ«°ł“Ē²Ō²µ“Ē

Feature

Grant Covic: Driving Sustainable Change

23 June 2021
Wireless EV charging could become part of your life sooner than you might think. Grant Covic is working towards a more sustainable and convenient transportation future.

Imagine this: Itā€™s a beautiful weekend for a quick getaway. You didnā€™t plug in your electric vehicle overnight ā€“ but you didnā€™t have to. As soon as you parked in your driveway, your car began to charge wirelessly. Now, as you head down the motorway, the charge gets topped up regularly by the road itself, meaning your battery never gets too drained, which helps prolong its life. 

Right now, this scenario exists only in pilot testing. But it could become part of your life sooner than you might think. of Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of ŠÓ°ÉAPPis one of the worldā€™s leaders in wireless charging technology. The  professor is working with colleagues around the world to make the future of transportation not only sustainable but easy.

Thereā€™s more to Covicā€™s vision. When you stop for lunch, the restaurant car park tops up your vehicleā€™s charge. Because there are similar charging pads all over, there isnā€™t a massive drain on the power grid at night even though all your neighbours also drive EVs. The throughout-the-day use means the natural variability of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind isnā€™t a problem. Because itā€™s so easy to top up, batteries donā€™t have to be huge. Charging systems work regardless of vehicle make or model.

Image
Grant Covic

At your holiday destination, you can go shopping secure in the knowledge that goods have been sustainably transported by electric trucks. At night, after a few drinks, you can catch a ride back to your hotel in an autonomous shuttle that runs 24/7 and is charged as it waits in the taxi rank. 

All this infrastructure is safe and economic. When your child drops a ball under the car in the driveway and reaches for it, the charging system turns off automatically.

ā€œWireless charging of electric vehicles will change the way we live our lives in ways that are helpful to us and helpful to the planet.ā€ 

Grant Covic

Your car might have a wireless charging compartment for your devices but neither you nor your electronics are affected by wandering over a car park. Equipping kilometre-long stretches of roadway with dynamic charging capacity doesnā€™t cost much more than building a regular road. The infrastructure lasts decades, so the initial outlay is soon offset by savings to the health system as fewer people need care for smog-exacerbated respiratory disease.

ā€œWireless charging of electric vehicles will change the way we live our lives in ways that are helpful to us and helpful to the planet,ā€ says Covic.

Ideas to life

 What will it take to make this vision reality? A lot of research and investment, much of which is already underway. For the past three decades, the , which today includes Covic, ,  and , has been working with international colleagues and manufacturers to provide technical solutions while also leading efforts to establish universal standards for wireless charging. Standards suitable for private vehicles were finalized last year and heavy-duty standards are in development.

With the University of ŠÓ°ÉAPPas the key international collaborator and strategic partner, Covic and his colleagues have also been working with , a U.S.-based consortium working on charging vehicles on the move. 

The University of ŠÓ°ÉAPPhas a long history of research on wireless charging technology.  and Andrew Green began researching inductive (contactless) power transfer (IPT) back in the late 1980s. Covic started working with them in the early to mid-1990s.

Image
A lightbulb is turned on using inductive power transfer in Covic's lab

Though their initial research focused on other applications, Covic, Boys and Green began to research wirelessly charging electric vehicles around the end of the 1990s. Their work resulted in the first wirelessly powered EV in commercial application, an electric bus system used at Whakarewarewa in the Rotorua area. 

A decade later, with help from UniServices, Covic and Boys set up a startup, HaloIPT, to commercialize wireless charging systems for EVs. HaloIPT was bought by wireless technology company Qualcomm in 2011. WiTricity, a U.S.-based wireless charging company,  in 2019. With  this year, Covic and his team continue to work closely with industry to bring wireless charging to the EV market.

Covic has been widely recognized for his work, with awards including the Prime Ministerā€™s Science Prize, the Vice Chancellorā€™s commercialisation medal, a KiwiNet research commercialisation award and, as joint head of research at HaloIPT, a Clean Equity Monaco award in environmental engineering and two NZ Clean Innovation awards.

ā€œThe Power Electronics Group has been right at the forefront of pioneering this technology,ā€ says Covic. ā€œFrom the early days, UniServices helped us create connections and licence our technology to companies. When it came to a point where we had our own vision we wanted to push towards, UniServices enabled us to set up a company. We couldnā€™t have done it without their support and guidance, because when we started, most people didnā€™t believe it was possible.ā€

How it works

Fundamentally, wireless charging is based on a coil with a high-frequency current running through it. A flowing electric current generates a field. Bringing another coil into that field causes the current to flow. What happens next is like tuning a radio to a particular frequency. Wireless charging technology tuned to resonance at a particular frequency can magnetically couple two coils, which enables highly efficient power transfers. 

Of course, charging vehicles wirelessly is more challenging than, say, turning on a light bulb.

ā€œThe future Iā€™m looking for is one where weā€™re all comfortable moving away from internal combustion engines, not because weā€™re required to do so but because itā€™s just better. Electric vehicles are already better.ā€

Grant Covic

ā€œYouā€™ve got to transfer quite a large amount of power and youā€™ve got to do it in a way thatā€™s efficient and safe, which means shaping the electrical field to be where you want it to be and not anywhere you donā€™t want it to be,ā€ says Covic. ā€œWeā€™ve got to deal with different types of vehicles with different heights and different power demands. People who make roads have to be assured the road will still have a long lifespan. Car manufacturers want the technology to be incredibly compact and well-integrated and they want to be able to mass-produce it for many types of vehicles because thatā€™s how you get the prices down. So thereā€™s a lot to consider.ā€

Heavy vehicles are a particular challenge because they require significantly more power than light vehicles and sit at larger distances from charging pads. However, electrifying them would make a big difference in carbon emissions. If they can be charged more often or while theyā€™re on the move, battery packs can be made smaller to solve some of the technical problems, says Covic.

The road ahead

So, when are we likely to start seeing wirelessly charged EVs? In a few places, buses and trucks are already being charged wirelessly but they use systems built just for them, says Covic. The rollout of standardised IPT technology will start next year in Asia and Europe. New Zealand may be a few years behind, but within five years, Covic believes urban Kiwis will be getting into wirelessly charged taxis and early adopters will be buying cars that can be charged either wirelessly or through plugs. 

The early systems will only charge parked cars but once dynamic charging capacity is installed in enough of the right roads, it will be possible for electric heavy vehicle fleets to haul goods around the country without having to worry about range or significant down time at charging stations.

Covicā€™s colleague , a transportation engineer, is a member of the multidisciplinary team working on integrating wireless charging into the road network

, who leads the , is another key member of the team.

With the Climate Change Commission recommending a stop to imports of fuel-burning cars by 2035 and the government aiming for net-zero emissions by 2050, the shift to electric will have to happen quickly. 

ā€œThe infrastructure has to grow in advance, exponentially,ā€ says Covic. ā€œThe future Iā€™m looking for is one where weā€™re all comfortable moving away from internal combustion engines, not because weā€™re required to do so but because itā€™s just better. Electric vehicles are already better. The only anxiety has been around the battery range and plugging in. If we can remove those issues, the technology becomes self-evident.ā€

Want to connect with University researchers in sustainability and cleantech?