How will we meet demand for new charge points?

With BEV sales in February up 21.9% on the same time last year, the appetite for EVs is significant. While this looks encouraging, the majority of these sales were down to fleet operators and businesses. Sales to private owners actually declined by 2.6%.

The ‘driveway divide’ could be a factor. Around 30% of people in the UK don’t have access to a private driveway and will need to rely on public charge points to recharge their vehicles. Even those who predominantly charge their EVs at home need to be confident that they will be able to recharge on the road. 

With a projected 9 million EVs on UK’s roads by 2030 (SMMT Electric Vehicle Infrastructure position paper) maintaining the current ratio (1:17) will require half a million public EV charge points – and it’s important that they are the right type. 

One charge point per 17 EVs becomes one per 86 

Currently there are a million pure EVs on the road. At the end of March 2024 there were 59,590 public charge points in 32,322 locations in the UK, that’s one for every 17 EVs. Which looks great written down, the problem is that the vast majority of these charge points aren’t fit for purpose for ‘on the go’ charging. 

The power rating bandings for EV chargers were redefined for 2024. They are now slow (3-7kW), fast (8-49kW) rapid (50-149kW) and ultra-rapid (150kW+).

Of the 59,000 installed EV charge points, nearly 48,000 are under 50kW, according to the Zap-Map database. That’s simply too slow for the recharging requirements of most EV drivers in 2024. 

Charging behaviour differs between ‘on the go’ and ‘at home’ charging. When we are out and about, we want to turn up and charge our vehicles within minutes rather than wait around for hours. This calls for rapid and ultra-rapid, multi-bay charging hubs. EV drivers are looking for reliability and availability, and that’s not what they are getting from the vast majority of installed public charge points. In fact, only 6,942 are rapid and 4,667 are ultra-rapid. That’s just one for every 86 EVs, which tells rather a different story. 

New infrastructure costs serious money

Clearly something needs to be done to accelerate the roll-out of rapid and ultra-rapid charge points. One of the biggest barriers to this in the UK is the Targeted Charging Review (TCR) which makes commerce and industry pay for the infrastructure upgrade needed to strengthen the grid to meet demand for these more powerful charge points. 

The cost for large scale projects is enormous, and only a huge throughput will make them commercially viable. That is possible for a business charging large fleets at its depots, where the throughput is guaranteed. But installing a multi-bay hub at a new public charging location is going to be a step in the dark. You don’t know what the uptake will be, which makes the investment riskier as you may not be able to cover the costs of installation and supply on that site. Throw variable costs of interest and energy into the mix, and the picture is even harder to define. 

So, while there is an appetite among the public for EVs and a rapid/ultra-rapid charging infrastructure, the investment required may not be achievable. That is going to be a major barrier to meeting the goals. The actual number may get met, but it won’t be of the kind of charge point that the general public will want. 

There is some positive action being taken. Most of the top 10 Charge Point Operators (CPOs) are only looking to install multi-bay rapid/ultra-rapid hubs – but the TCR will still prove a challenge even for them. Ensuring consumer confidence in the UK’s EV charging network is going to come down to reducing the fixed costs for the CPOs, so they are not carrying the burden of reinforcing the network. 

There are other factors at play that may also shackle development. Some of these may potentially be easier to address individually, but the TCR issue casts a long shadow.

Motorway charge point targets missed 

In Feb, the House of Lords (HoL) Environment and Climate Change Committee published a report ‘EV Strategy: Rapid Recharge Needed’ which states: that ‘The availability of public charge points across the UK is highly variable, and the government has missed its targets for motorway charge points.’ 

The government stated that every motorway service station should have at least six rapid or ultra-rapid chargers by the end of 2023. However, according to the RAC’s analysis of data from Zap-Map, only 46 out of 119 sites (under 40%) had achieved this. 

CPOs and motorway service operators are keen to install rapid and ultra-rapid chargers, but it’s connecting these to the grid via high-power cabling that is a major barrier – and is outside of their control. Again, the TCR is a major consideration and a potential barrier.

It’s not only motorway service stations where targets aren’t being met. 

New challenges call for new thinking  

The HoL report warns that ‘outdated’ planning rules are holding back the public charging infrastructure roll out, and local authorities need funding to help meet the targets. Whether that’s funding for installing chargers on local authorities’ land, or to support the processing of planning applications to make it more attractive for private landowners to install charging hubs. 

What needs to happen is some ‘joined up’ thinking. We’re trying to solve a radically new problem using ‘outdated’ methods that weren’t developed for this scale of problem. 

We need to look at the bigger picture rather than our own individual elements. That means landowners, motorway service station operators, local authorities, the grid and CPOs need to work together to establish a smoother, faster way to meet the immediate challenge or risk failing future generations. But first, we need to find a more equitable way to fund the system upgrades. 

Find out more about Mer EV charging solutions at https://uk.mer.eco/