BFPA Economic Forecast Seminar 2024

15 Oct 2024

Over 40 delegates attended BFPA’s 2024 Economic Forecast Seminar on 9 October which was held at Warwick Conferences at the University of Warwick in Coventry. As usual, the main focus of the day was for Oxford Economics to provide members with an update of the world and UK economic outlook, before presenting their latest five-year forecast for the fluid power industry (2024-2028). Supporting guest speakers at this year’s event were from the University of Warwick WMG Centre, which is part of the UK’s HMV Catapult network.

Jeremy Leonard of Oxford Economics	Dr Darren Hughes of WMG	Nicolas Holmes, University of Warwick PhD student

Jeremy Leonard, Director of Global Industry Services opened the event with an overview of the main world and UK economic developments since last October. The UK economy has been growing at a steady pace in 2024, with increased consumer spending power likely to drive growth into 2025. However, tight public finances are putting pressure on spending, and some capital projects have been cancelled by the new Labour government which are downside risks. Another concern surrounds companies moving out of the UK since Brexit.

The second part of Jeremy’s presentation focused on the short and medium-term prospects for fluid power. BFPA’s monthly survey data for both hydraulics and pneumatics indicate that year-to-date (to August) both hydraulic and pneumatic shipments are down and weaker than expected, but these figures are compared to a strong first half of 2023.

Oxford’s forecasts for 2024 up to 2028 were presented as were the assumptions behind the figures – this year’s outturn will be below what was predicted this time last year due to the delayed impact of high interest rates putting a drag on the industrial machinery sector, and weaker construction demand impacting hydraulics in 2024. 2025 should offer better prospects for both hydraulics and pneumatics.

Dr Darren Hughes, Professor in Materials and Manufacturing, WMG Centre HVM Catapult, University of Warwick gave an excellent presentation on the role of the WMG, one of the UK’s 7 world-class research centres. He then presented several recent case studies before focusing on the current Coventry Very Light Rail (CVLR) Project, the challenge being to “develop an affordable light rail system”, keeping the costs to £10 million per km (compared to typical recent UK tram schemes costing anything between £ 41 million / km to £ 71 million / km).

This fascinating project was an excellent example of a new approach to a complicated problem. The project has succeeded in meeting the cost challenge with the CVLR system concept of a lightweight vehicle design and shallow excavation track having now moved through the design and virtual modelling stages into full scale track demonstrators which are now installed at Warwick University and Whitley depot being tested for HGV loading.

Dr Truong Dinh, Associate Professor of Energy Management and Control Systems, WMG Centre HVM Catapult, University of Warwick then gave an interesting presentation on the expertise of his department which specialises in advanced techniques driven by AI and Digital Twins to optimise efficiency, resilience and inclusivity of electrified transport energy and mechatronic systems.

Examples of recent successful projects are: TE-1 (Triumph Electric Motorcycle, IDP15) and the eBSA (BSA Electric Motorcycle, APC16), wave energy harvesters and off highway machines.

PhD student Nicolas Holmes then gave a presentation on an exciting current PhD project, investigating the development of an electric-hydraulic hybrid (EHH) drivetrain solution to the challenges of electric emergency vehicles (fire engines) requiring very large batteries to meet the long driving range requirements and pumping times of these vehicles.

Many delegates joined tours of the WMG Laboratories (Energy Innovation Centre EIC, and International Manufacturing Centre IMC) and the CVLR test track which is based on site.

 

EIC Battery Testing	IMC Winding Centre	CVLR test track

For more details on how to purchase a copy of the 2024-2028 BFPA Fluid Power Forecast and proceedings from the day, or anything contained in this article please contact Sarah Gardner at sarah@bfpa.co.uk