A Shortcut to Faster Urban Electrification

A new approach to EV infrastructure is turning everyday streetlights and utility poles into curbside chargers, aiming to dramatically cut deployment costs and speed up access to charging in cities. By leveraging existing electrical networks instead of building standalone stations, the concept could help scale overnight residential charging and ease pressure on the grid—potentially reshaping how urban EV charging is rolled out.

Transcript

00:00:02 Voltpost is great design. It's not intrusive. It doesn't look like an eyesore in a city. It looks like I'll use the term it just belongs there. It looks like it's part of that pre-existing infrastructure. So, the design's really well done. What was the inspiration to design Voltpost and how did it become in this this beautiful form factor? It looks

00:00:20 like it's part of the urban landscape. So, it's been a journey. And [gasps] as you as you may expect, um but it's all started with a very um simple concept of trying to use more of what is already there. If you can utilize existing infrastructure, you can shorten your uh deployment time

00:00:42 scales and reduce your installation costs. So, the number one piece of infrastructure that's already there in towns and cities across uh not only the US, but in Europe and I'm originally from the UK, um is the humble street light. Um

00:01:05 aided by uh the utility pole, which is also very prevalent, more so perhaps in the US um than in some of the European cities. Um but yeah, so identifying the fact that there are street lights and utility poles that are it located in ideal um positions for where you might want EV

00:01:27 charging for residents that park on the street. You then think, well, you need a charger. You you you've got the assets there. How can we use them? Um and Voltpost is a mission-driven company. Um we started over five over 5 years ago. We had um some initial sort of prototypes and gradually through

00:01:49 evolution, we're now deploying the Voltpost there, which we're very excited about. Um and to your point about it sort of blending in and being part of the environment, um, we can also customize the wrap of the charger. So, if a particular city has like a historic area, it has to be

00:02:12 uh, I think that we had one where it's like has to be a Detroit green, um, we can do that. Equally, we're looking at a project in Connecticut with some schools. We might get the school children to do the design for the for the wrap. We say in forever that charger will be part of the school. Um, so yeah, the the design side is quite exciting,

00:02:33 but it's it sort of comes at the end of the journey once you've you found a charger that can, um, that can work for your use case, which is the street light. If you walk around London in the UK, obviously, it goes back centuries, the infrastructure and the light posts are different than if you want to use

00:02:52 traditional US light posts. In some cases in London, they look a lot nicer, they look historical, and and they're there. How do you integrate the Volt post into that in that older infrastructure in the UK? And then how do you get the energy cuz years ago I read an article in the Financial Times that said, either you can turn the tea

00:03:10 kettle on or you could charge your car, and you can't do both. And I'll And I'll never forget that FT article. Yeah, well, I mean, the press is, uh, you know, famous for doing EVs justice. Um, no, I mean, it's a it's a good comment because y-

00:03:31 people's you can flip it round and say, well, is the grid really so, um, so overburdened that what happens if you flip two kettles on? A- you know, are you going to cause the whole thing to short circuit?
>> [laughter]
>> I mean,

00:03:46 a- at the end of the day, we're talking residential charging is low power and it's typically overnight. Um which is what the grid wants. You know, the the what they can't support easily is you know, huge um DC fast charger installations. You know, that needs a lot of careful

00:04:09 planning, a lot of infrastructure. Um because it's like building you know, like an entire apartment complex in a very small piece of land. Um which is why those projects can take years. They're vital to the EV charging infrastructure network. Um but they're very, very different to the residential overnight charging model.

00:04:30 Um so yeah, I've seen those comments for years and years. And I think we're getting to the point now where we're moving past that. It's debunked. Um the infrastructure in the UK and the US similar ages depending where you are. Um I worked for company called Ubitricity

00:04:52 in the UK. Um which is one of the very first to pioneer the street light chargers. Um and London had a lot of pretty good infrastructure that we could tap into. Um deployments were pretty quick. In the US it's a little bit different. Um mostly just through different wiring standards um that have been adopted over time.

00:05:16 Um but they're still you know, a good source of power. There's normally one other thing people forget. We were speaking to one city last week. And they have 20,000 street lights under their control. We don't need to convert all 20,000 today tomorrow. So we can work with the easiest 1% to

00:05:42 convert. That gives us 200 street lights. The 1% that are closest to the power source, the 1% that are the newest, the 1% that have the best conduit in the ground. We don't need to start with the 1% that are the furthest from the power, that are the oldest infrastructure, that are the most

00:06:03 difficult to convert. Um we may never get to that 1% or we wait for them to be replaced because every single year X% of street lights will be replaced as they age out. With current finances, sometimes that gets delayed a little bit. People sweat their assets more than they would like to,

00:06:22 but ultimately a number of street lights will be replaced every year. But we aim to start with the easiest conversions. Um which just makes logical sense to me at least. And it was the same in the UK. How do you convert the the lamp post for charging? Do you have to tap into existing conduit? What do you What does that conversion

00:06:45 look like? And is it different from the UK to the US? Yes. So the UK electricity system is almost entirely 200 uh 40 volts. Each street light in the majority of cities is directly connected to the mains, the same as your house would be. So each street light

00:07:10 could easily take a a 20 amp EV charger with no up-rate to the wiring, which is which is wonderful and it was why London was one of the first real um deployment hubs, so to speak, for that technology because the installations could be done so

00:07:29 quickly. Here in the US, um typically each street light is not connected to the mains individually. It's a string of lights. So you'll have one cable going in and out of all the street lights. So, typically we will seek to utilize the existing conduit that is in the

00:07:52 ground and then pull a new wire through to the street light. Whereas the utility pole is actually a little bit easier because the power is already there overhead, drop a cable down, install your charger. Slightly simplistic in the sense that you still have to do your good site surveys. Not every utility pole can be

00:08:15 converted. But, in essence, that's the two main differences.