You never return to a restaurant where you got food poisoning. The same, says Scott Kettell, applies to switching to electric vehicles. If you struggle to reach charging points, find broken ones or curse having to download yet another payment app, you may just let those exhaust fumes follow you around for a few more years.
That’s bad news for the planet. And the problem Kettell, a network team leader at Vital EV Solutions, is trying to solve with his passion for engineering.
“A lot is riding on charging infrastructure,” explains Kettell, who, with his team, deals with issues that pop up across a network of over 1,500 EV chargers. “We have to make sure it’s bomb-proof, cheap, easy and accessible.”
Most companies in this space are navigating the complexities of a fairly new, rapidly changing industry. Demand is booming (electric car sales could reach 17m this year), which means solutions have to be found fast. And with more drivers wanting green energy, from source to car battery, there’s plenty of innovation waiting for engineers like Kettell.
Just weeks ago, Kettell and his team launched a charging station between Oxford and Cambridge, north of London, which pulls power directly from two wind turbines. What made the project interesting is that it had to have a back-up plan – a dynamic load management system – that could plug into the grid on days when the wind died down. The set-up also involved a battery to store and distribute power from the turbines, along with a simple tap-and-go card payment system.
“You can now grab a coffee and charge up your car with pure green energy,” Kettell (28) says, explaining that the chargers are next door to a Starbucks.
Engineering in the DNA
Growing up in Coventry, near Birmingham, Kettell felt the pull of engineering from an early age. His father had spent a chunk of his working life as a machine tool fitter and loved to work with his hands. Whether it was building a deck at the top of the garden or turning scraps of metal into a penny-farthing, Kettell's dad encouraged his son’s curiosity for how machines work.
“I was fascinated with how you go from a square piece of metal to something elaborate, something that has a function,” says Kettell. Before long, he was teaming up with friends to weld together a go-kart for a local downhill race.
At school, Kettell excelled at maths and physics. But something was missing. It was the bridge between why he was writing down and memorising equations and what those equations were being used for out in the real world.
This led Kettell to the door of the Advanced Manufacturing Training Centre (part of the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry). There, he finished a four-year apprenticeship, which he calls a “perfect blend of theory and practical work”.
“It was amazing. The maths just started to make sense. The algebra. The calculus. I could see it as a point on a graph. And I got to play around on the lathes and the milling machines. I experienced the first principles of engineering.”
The robot whisperer
Kettell's apprenticeship led him into the digital side of engineering, and introduced him to a field he landed up specialising in: metrology, the science of measurement. As he transitioned from the classroom to the real world, he got to work on submarine designs at BAE Systems. From there, he joined Zeiss, a company that sold precise measuring machines. His slice of their aerospace work involved managing robotic scanners that checked and logged aeroplane turbine blades.
Because of safety standards surrounding passenger aircraft, these measurement machines had to be accurate to the micron – one thousandth of a millimetre. Kettell programmed them to create digital twins, issue reports and file away results for safe keeping. During our interview he pulled up a YouTube video of the process – a robotic arm grabbing and moving a turbine from one chamber to another – and explained each step of the scan. He also used his notepad to sketch pictures as we talked, bringing the penny-farthing from his youth to life.
After some six years at Zeiss, it was time for a new challenge. Kettell searched for a problem to solve and found EV chargers.
“The cars take the spotlight,” he says. “Everyone talks about Teslas. Not Kempower (a brand of chargers). But you can’t have Tesla without Kempower.”
Being part of a future vision
As Kettell sees it, his work is a “foundational piece” of a more sustainable future. A way to let people go about their lives while causing less damage to the planet.
Just over a year after joining Vital EV Solutions, Kettell is using software and hardware to find faults and fix them. He hopes that by the end of the year, his company would have installed 2,000 or more connectors (the nozzles you stick into cars to charge them).
He has also just become a father, and is studying for his Master’s degree (as a Whitworth award holder). An IMechE member, he’s the organisation’s vice chair of the Birmingham Young Members Panel and chair of the Midlands Design Challenge.
“I’m keeping myself nice and busy,” he quips, throwing swimming, running and Leicester City football season tickets into the mix.
Kettell finds time to speak at schools and to young engineers. He tells them about the meaning he finds in his work and reminds them to try all areas of engineering before specialising.
“Engineering is so broad and so exciting. You don’t want to shut any doors.”
To nominate an IMechE member making a difference, email profeng@thinkpublishing.co.uk
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.