S.Korean startup enters UK market for wireless charging of EVs

A South Korean startup will enter the British market for wireless charging facilities for electric vehicles (EV), as Korean firms speed up their advancement in the sector after being tied down by regulations.

The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Sunday said WiPowerOne had landed an order to design, from next year, wireless charging facilities for an EV-sharing project in Milton Keynes, England. The company will sketch a system that automatically recharges an EV battery when the vehicle enters a parking space. The order value is expected to be modest given the venture's early design stage.

WiPowerOne pursued a related project using "self-resonant imaging technology" that safely transmits a large capacity of electrical energy wirelessly. Called Miracle Road, the system charges an EV battery when a vehicle with a wireless charging receiver enters or stops on a road where a wireless transmitter is buried, eliminating the need to plug or unplug the charger.

The efficiency and convenience of wireless charging facilities have caught people's attention in the UK.

"After completing design, we are discussing signing another contract on the installation and operation of wireless charging facilities," WiPowerOne CEO Cho Dong-ho said, adding that "the US and Saudi Arabia have also shown interest in this sector."

Seven regulations under the Radio Act of Korea made it impossible to test wireless EV charging, including the absence of a classification of such charging in the 85-kilohertz frequency band.

In 2018, however, the business chamber and the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT began efforts to resolve the problem after learning of WiPowerOne's difficulties. The ministry designated frequency bands specifically for wireless charging demos and spearheaded the passage, in September 2020, of special verification cases through regulatory sandboxes for information and communications technology.

Write to Ji-Eun Jeong at jeong@hankyung.com