As part of DER-IC Scotland, the Hydrogen Accelerator has attracted £4m of investment from Transport Scotland to fund the new LOCATE facility (Low Carbon Transport Applications Centre). The project is being led by the Hydrogen Accelerator (University of St Andrews and University of Strathclyde). This is part of a pipeline of support preceded by the DER funded equipment at PNDC (University of Strathclyde) which provides sub-systems and powertrain testing and de-risking prior to platform level testing at LOCATE. DER-IC has helped to facilitate this partnership through its connections with partners the University of St Andrews, which specialises in batteries, fuel cells and hydrogen; and the University of Strathclyde, which has expertise in energy systems, power electronics, machines and drives.
LOCATE provides a first of a kind, platform level, route-to-market Power Train Test Bed (PTTB) for hydrogen fuel cell and battery electric drive trains. LOCATE will form part of a Low Carbon Transport Programme being jointly developed between Scottish Enterprise and Transport Scotland. The LOCATE test facility will provide an ‘emulated’ representation of real world duty cycles for a variety of heavy-duty road/niche vehicles. This replaces and brings forward what would traditionally have been on-road testing. It is aimed at platform level testing at TRL levels 5-7 and will reduce cost and time to market for the users.