The year 2020 is a critical year for Electreon Wireless from Beit Yanai, near Tel Aviv. The company has almost completed the viability tests of its unique Wireless Electric Roads (ERS) technology, and now is preparing itself for the next phase: commercialization and large scale projects. This week it gained the trust of some of Israel’s biggest institutional Investors, such as Migdal, Psagot, Mor, Excellence and more, who invested US$50 million in the company.

Electreon Wireless was established in 2013 and developed a new concept of Electric Road: It makes use of Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer via electromagnetic fields produced under the roadbed, to charge the batteries of passing Electric Vehicles, thus allows for smaller and cheaper batteries, and new services such as “Charge as a Service”.

The system consists of a copper coils as road infrastructure placed under the road at the center of the traffic lane; A receiver located under the vehicle chassis; Communication system to provides real-time communication with each vehicle and a Power station – An underground system that transmits the energy to the road’s infrastructure.

Prior to the last investment round, Electreon had achieved a major milestone: It had completed a test of dynamic wireless charging of a 40 ton long haul electric truck on the island of Gotland, Sweden. The test verified that the road infrastructure successfully functions in real life conditions and that the system is not affected by snow or rain.

The test was conducted on a public stretch of electric road, that was deployed in November 2019, between the airport and the town of Visby on the Swedish island of Gotland. The system provided dynamic charging of the truck on a 50 meter section at a speed of up to 30 km/h. The results proved that the system operated while the truck was on the move and all the receivers functioned and transferred 45 kW to the truck’s battery. Additional electric road segments will be deployed and an electric bus will be in commercial operation as an airport shuttle.

The company is expecting to complete full commissioning of its demo projects in Tel Aviv and Sweden by the end of 2020. Those projects include a 25-30 km deployment that will charge heavy-duty trucks in Sweden, and a 10 km shared deployment for public transportation and other commercial users in Tel Aviv. The company also plans to establish a local presence in selected new markets such as Germany, Italy, France, California, India, and Latin America, and to use the funds to accelerate the development of commercial projects.