Fleets have led the UK’s transport decarbonisation efforts, consistently accounting for a majority share of monthly EV uptake. Growth in fleet decarbonisation is expected to continue across the next decade, driven by legislation and market demand.
How businesses go about electrifying their fleets, though, is an essential consideration when establishing the cost benefit of making the switch. In August, the Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology (REA) published a new resource that provides commercial vehicle fleet managers with a detailed roadmap to electrifying their fleets.
According to the paper, which was developed by the REA’s HGV and commercial fleet working group, fleet managers can expect to save about £1,500 annually per light commercial vehicle (LCV) driving 15,000 miles a year if charged at the depot or at home.
Owen Mabbott, head of solutions at startup Omility, spoke to Current± about how the company is helping fleet managers make their green energy transition.
Why did Omility launch?
“Omility was founded earlier this year with the ambition of helping fleets become greener. We look at where existing vehicles could electrify or use alternative fuel sources and then help plan that transition.
“We evaluated the solutions available at the moment. Although existing fleet management software enables managers to monitor their drivers’ performance and safety elements, Omility is about finding a solution to make the transition easier.
“It is important that fleet electrification is done accurately. Without the proper data, many solutions allow rough estimations but don’t consider all the factors, like weather or road speed limits, that impact how a vehicle can be used.
“That is key to our proposition: we look at existing driving data, understand where the vehicles are being used and what sort of journeys they’re doing, and that information can help drive good recommendations.
“We offer an end-to-end solution that focuses on the data-driven side of things, more in planning the transition than operations. Once a business has electrified its fleet, we have software for managing the existing state of charge for vehicles, but what we are doing here is more in the initial planning phase to ensure the transition happens effectively.”
What market are you targeting?
“Omility helps managers understand where to spend and when a return on investment will be seen. Fleet managers making the change to more sustainable practices come up against high entry barriers—with things like electrification, you need the infrastructure, and the vehicles can be more expensive (up front).
“The big thing is not spending more money than you need to. For example, with infrastructure, you can have one vehicle and one charger, and you can keep replicating that. But actually, if the vehicles are being used at different times in the day, you might be good enough with one or two chargers and rotating usage. If you have the existing driving data and you understand the schedule of the vehicle—when that vehicle is in operation, say—you can reliably come up with recommendations.
“So, our primary focus is fleets who have a mind to become greener but are yet to act—in the current market landscape that’s a gap that needs bridging. In some instances, they may have electric vehicles and have done some procurement already, but actually, we can step in a little bit more and say going forward, these are some smarter choices.”
What has Omility worked on so far?
“We have a lot of conversations with local councils; that is a key market for us. There are solutions out there, but they don’t have the components we do. We help create some more reliability in the market and create something that’s a bit more competitive.
“Whether it is local authorities or commercial fleets in a business, the process is much the same. We recently became a member of UK 100, a cross-party membership organisation that supports councils’ net zero initiatives, so we have access to local authorities who want to transition their fleets at that level.”
What does the future hold?
“Right now, when we look at the current solutions we have and where the demand is, it is more in the planning phase. Over a period of time, we expect that there will be that transition in terms of fleets moving, obviously, from the planning phase to the maintenance phase.
“That is where we have other products in terms of managing electric fleets, looking at vehicles’ state of charge and how charging can be more efficient, things like that. That evolution is what we expect to see, but at the moment, the vast majority of fleets are nowhere near the stage of needing vehicle management.
“We are ready when the time comes, but now we are much more in the preliminary space, enabling the planning aspect.”
Current± recently published a blog by Mabbott that provides more insight into the data points supporting fleet electrification.
