Site chosen for world’s first permanent electric road

Sweden’s transport administration, Trafikverket, has announced the location for its planned electric road, capable of charging heavy electric vehicles.

EVolutionRoad, an electric road pilot scheme, is currently running in Lund, Sweden

A 21km stretch of the two-lane E20 highway, between the towns of Hallsberg and Örebro, in the central southern region of the country, will include transformers and technology to transfer electricity to vehicles.

Although the technology that will be utilised on the road has not yet been announced, Trafikverket recently part-financed a pilot scheme in the municipality of Lund, with a ground-level feeding system that charges vehicles (with retractable electrical pick-ups) as they pass over it.

Pilot scheme

The consortium that worked on the €9.2 million pilot scheme, named EVolutionRoad, comprised Innovation Skåne (which acted as project manager), Elonroad, Kraftringen Energi, Lund municipality / Future by lund, Lund University of Technology, LTH, Ramboll, Skånetrafiken, Solaris Sverige, National Road and Transport Research Institute, VTI.

The EVolutionRoad scheme has been running since 2020, gathering data from an electric bus running the route for one week in each month.

According to the agency, tender documents will soon be ready for the E20 construction project, with a final road plan set to be in place by early 2024 and construction work completed by 2026.

If the system proves a success, the government will hope it can aid in its stated aim of cutting greenhouse gas emissions from transportation by 70% by 2030.