Paua selected for Freight Innovation Fund Accelerator

Paua has been selected to join the fifth cohort of the Freight Innovation Fund Accelerator, supporting the development of innovative solutions for the UK freight and logistics sector.

The Freight Innovation Fund is funded by the Department for Transport and delivered by Connected Places Catapult. The programme uses real-world trials, industry collaboration and scale-up support to accelerate innovative freight and logistics solutions across the UK.

Paua is one of 11 UK SMEs selected for the first phase of the latest Accelerator cohort.

Making electric freight charging more certain

Our project, Paua Reserve, is focused on a growing challenge for electric commercial vehicle fleets: knowing that the right charge point will actually be available when a vehicle arrives.

Booking and reservation capabilities are beginning to emerge across the EV charging industry. But different charge point operators and technology platforms are developing their own approaches, creating the risk of fragmented booking rules, interfaces, authentication processes and commercial models.

Paua Reserve will explore how these different systems can be brought together through a harmonised charge point booking integration service for commercial EV fleets.

The aim is not to create another standalone booking platform. Instead, we want fleets to be able to discover, reserve and access charging through a consistent experience, while charge point operators and site owners retain control over their infrastructure and booking rules.

For freight operators, greater charging certainty could help reduce operational risk, improve route planning and give businesses more confidence when deploying electric HGVs and other commercial vehicles.

Phase 1: designing the trial

During the first phase of the Freight Innovation Fund Accelerator, Paua will receive up to funding to develop a detailed trial proposal.

This work will explore both the technical and commercial questions needed to make interoperable reservations work in practice.

That includes areas such as:

• how different charge point booking systems can interoperate
• the minimum information fleets and charge point operators need to exchange
• booking, cancellation and no-show processes
• commercial models for reserving charging capacity
• user experience for fleet managers and drivers
• how charging certainty can be measured during a real-world trial

At the end of the Trial Design phase, up to eight businesses from the cohort will be selected to progress to Phase 2, with up to further funding available to deliver their trials.

So, to be clear, we have not completed the trial yet. This first phase is about designing a strong, evidence-led trial that can test the proposition in the real world.

Supporting the transition to electric freight

For Paua, the project builds on our existing work helping commercial fleets find, access and pay for EV charging across public and shared private infrastructure.

As electric HGV deployment grows, we believe the industry will increasingly need more than simply knowing where a charger is located. Operators need confidence that suitable infrastructure will be available at the time and place their vehicles need it.

The Freight Innovation Fund gives us an opportunity to work with the freight and charging industries to explore how that certainty can be delivered at scale.

We’re delighted to have been selected and are looking forward to getting started.

If you want to get involved fill in this short form here.

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