The UK government is determined to address the challenges of tackling climate change and maintaining energy security in a way that minimises costs and maximises benefits to the economy. Among all sources of CO2 emissions in the UK, the energy supply accounts for about 40%, followed by the transport for over 25%. To meet the target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, large proportion of electricity generated from low carbon sources integrated with mass adoption of electric vehicles (EV) offer a great potential. Likewise, the Chinese 12th National Economic and Social Development Five-Year Plan has set the target of 3.5% reduction per unit of GDP in both energy use and carbon dioxide emissions, and identified new energy and clean energy vehicles among the seven priority industries in the next five years from 2012. It is clear that both countries are fully committed to a planned 'decarbonisation' of their respective energy systems. However, both face the challenges of planning and building the suitable infrastructure, and of managing the resources to ensure future power systems operate more reliably, more flexibly, and more economically, by integrating and coordinating the actions of all actors. It has been widely recognized that electric vehicles could both benefit from and help to drive forward the development of smart grids where renewable resources are widely and substantially employed. However, a number of technical challenges are still open for further exploitation. The proposed collaborative interdisciplinary research will investigate and develop an intelligent grid interfaced vehicle eco-charging (iGIVE) system for more reliable, more flexible and efficient, and more environmental friendly smart gird solutions for seamless integration of distributed low-carbon intermittent power generation and large number of EVs. To achieve this, a multilayer hierarchical power and information flow framework for monitoring and optimal control of the EV charging while minimising the volume of information passed to the utility control centers will be investigated first. Within this framework, a variable rate bi-directional high performance EV battery charging unit based on a patented technology will be developed, and battery management and optimal EV charging and discharging dispatching strategies will be investigated. Other issues associated to the charging stations, such as electromagnetic interference and harmonics generation and their impact on environment and electricity grid will also be studied. Finally, simulation platform will be built to investigate the interactions of EV-related different participants and their impact on the grid operations. A test bed to verify the design will be developed and a joint UK-China joint laboratory on smart grid and EV integration will be established, bringing together key academic and industry partners in smart grid and EV from UK and China. Both system operators and EV industry in the UK, China and other parts of the world will benefit considerably from the development of intelligent EV eco-charging systems when a large number of EVs are adopted by the public and greater amounts of renewable power are utilized, as they provide an adaptive and intelligent framework and EV charging systems to economically, efficiently and environment-friendly accommodate charging requirements as well as providing ancillary service to the grid integrated with larger amounts of intermittent renewable energy sources and thereby enable the decarbonisation of the electricity supply industry and the transport sector.

The proposed multidisciplinary network for Decarbonizing Transport through Electrification (DTE) will bring together research expertise to address the challenges of interactions between energy networks, future electric vehicle charging infrastructure ( including roadside wireless charging, the shift to autonomous vehicles), electric and hybrid aircraft and electrification of the rail network. The DTE network will bring together industry, academia and the public sector to identify the challenges limiting current implementation of an electrified, integrated transport system across the automotive, aerospace and rail sectors. The network will develop and sustain an interdisciplinary team to solve these challenges, leveraging external funding from both public and private sectors, aiming to be become self sustainable in future and growing to establish an International Conference. The network will be inclusive, with a focus EDI and mechanisms to support colleagues such as early career researchers. The DTE network will address low-carbon transport modes (road, rail and airborne) alongside associated electricity infrastructures to support existing and deliver future mobility needs, treating these as an integrated system embedded within the electricity energy vector with the goal of decarbonising the transport sector. It will explore drivers for change within the transport system including technology innovation, individual mobility needs and economic requirements for change alongside environmental and social concerns for sustainability and consider the role, social acceptance and impact of policies and regulations to result in emissions reduction. The network has three key "Work Streams" focusing on: (i) vehicular technologies; (ii) charging infrastructure; (iii) energy systems. These will be underpinned by cross-cutting themes around large scale data analysis and human factors. The network also has a dedicated Work Stream on people-based activities to enable us to widen our dissemination and impact across other communities. The outcome of the DTE network is expected to transform current practices and research in the decarbonization of transport (considering a number of different perspectives).