Traffic movement could soon be used to generate electricity, putting Grimsby at the forefront of further greentech innovation.
Town-based company Rouute is behind a hydraulic compression system that could see speed bump style infrastructure installed to harness power, with a high profile pilot being planned in the town.
Founder Antony Edmondson-Bennett is targeting high-traffic density areas to deploy a system now reaching the market, with interest from airports and logistics operations buoying the eight-strong team, supported by several consultants. Energy generated would be distributed or fed into battery storage.
Read more: £30m funding pot secured by Myenergi to accelerate business development strategy
And should the patented design prove a hit with potential clients as a real-world demonstrator is delivered, manufacturing could be scaled up in a similar fashion to Myenergi’s high speed march at Stallingborough, with scores of jobs created.
Mr Edmondson-Bennett, a mechanical and electrical engineer who has relocated with his family to northern Lincolnshire to set the business up, said: “This area has one of the biggest carbon footprints on the planet and our technology is another solution for decarbonisation. We have the means to accelerate that.
"We can build the system here, with British engineers, a lot like Myenergi. They have taken EV charging innovation forward, and we’re starting to look at the UK in the same light, pushing this greentech, to become a leader for the better. It will be a big step, and we are going out for investment now.”
Ex-military, Mr Edmondson-Bennett has worked in oil and gas in Europe, Africa and Asia, and was working travelling to a project at Heathrow in 2017, when the concept dawned on him.
“We have a lot of two things, people and traffic,” he said. “I was parked up on the M25 and I thought ‘why can’t we use compression under a road to generate electricity?’ I always wanted to do something to make a difference, and while I knew it had been tried before, I thought there must be an easier way to do it. It is accessible to everyone but in this town we have the ports, and they have continuous movements of traffic.
“I have had three or four years of prototyping, trials and failures. We have now come up with a process that works 100 per cent.”
An initial small-scale pilot has been conducted with Morgan Sindall at a construction site in South Yorkshire, with the system used to power an electric vehicle charging hub.
It is the 24-hour terminal operations that are seen as ideal, with weightier trucks providing optimum results over cars, though kits can be tailored.
A 10 minute observation brought hopes for 30kWh generation at one shortlisted site with the system built on a scalable modular basis.
“It takes us less than a day to install, with the civils and the hydraulic system,” Mr Edmondson-Bennett said. “We’re now at commercialisation. We have gone through four years of painstaking research and development. We had investment in January last year of £250,000 then there have been loans and I’ve bootstrapped most of it from day one.
“Now we’re looking to put the first system into Grimsby in July, either with a shipping or freight forwarding client.”
US distribution deals could follow with product licensing a possibility, though the intent is to keep the manufacture of the core elements in-house.
“I have a vision to send this system globally. We want to build it here and distribute it from here.”
A team of eight, with four consultants, has been assembled from offices at Telegraph House Business Centre on Cleethorpe Road, but strong early support could see much larger premises taken.
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