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Iduna 2 has just hit its minimum investment threshold of £3 million, with more than 1,700 investors backing the raise, and the team is setting their sights on the full target of £6.5 million. We caught up with co-founder, Adrian Fielden-Gray, to hear about Iduna’s clever use of data to map new charging locations and create fair and equal access to EV charging infrastructure. Plus: new charger sites unlocked!
Let’s start with the new sites: what’s the latest update?
Adrian: It’s the starting gun on our biggest project, our partnership with Trafford Council in Greater Manchester. The first five leases were signed last week, with more in the pipeline. There’s no fixed maximum number of sites, but rather a joint goal of steadily building up the right network in the right way — for everyone across the borough. We’ll be installing up to 13 chargers across these first five sites, with the right mix of rapid and fast chargers.
It’s a genuinely forward-thinking approach by the Council and a great case for local authority involvement in EV charging roll-out. If it was left to the private sector alone, chargers would only go into affluent areas. Local authorities want a roll-out that is fast and fair. We can make that happen.
How are you doing that? How do you design a fair network?
Adrian: Getting it right by being on the ground and in the community is a good start. Our team has looked at pretty much every carpark in Trafford! But we’ve also got some pretty cool software that allows us to build granular maps with layers of data on top.
It means we can, for example, show areas with low or high availability of off-street parking/driveways. We can drill down to a very granular level and on a street-by-street basis. It allows us to focus on the roll-out of public charging infrastructure where it’s most needed: in areas with low off-street parking availability and therefore no option of home charging.
Where do you go from there?
Adrian: Where we work with a council like Trafford, we’d show all their assets — carparks, leisure centres, etc — on the map to see what land is available. Overlaid on that, we can map data on existing and planned public charging infrastructure, including our own pipeline.
All that allows us to identify and prioritise sites quickly. We can then sense check those by looking at an “isochrone” map layer that gives us areas within 10 minutes walking distance of those sites and helps plan the phases of the roll-out.
That’s the science and data bit that helps us get to a robust plan. But we also work very closely with our partners, like Trafford Council or other public and private sector organisations to ensure their priorities and ambitions are reflected.
It’s about coming up with a strategy beyond the first few sites — to build a sustainable network that can evolve to support the needs of the local community. If we want a fast transition to electric, this is the way to do it!
Iduna is still open for investment. You can help fund the green EV charging infrastructure within Greater Manchester and the North West today. This is a 5 year secured investment earning 8% before tax (interest paid from year 2). Find out more about this investment opportunity here.
As with any investment, there are risks when investing on Abundance. Your invested capital is at risk and any return on your investment depends on the ability of the company or council you have invested in to pay your returns. Investments on Abundance are generally long term and you should be prepared to hold them to maturity. The investments are illiquid and you may not be able to sell them if you need your money back earlier, and their value can rise or fall. Some investments may be secured, but this does not guarantee repayment or your return.
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