FUELLING CHANGE

With an end date set for combustion engines and plug-in sales accelerating in the UK, demands are ramping up for a widespread public charging infrastructure. So what do the companies tasked with deploying them see as the biggest hurdles ahead?

- Alex Grant

Tom Callow, head of insight and external affairs, BP Pulse The real challenge for public charging infrastructure is ensuring that utilisation grows sufficiently over the coming years. Modern public charging points are much more reliable than the dwindling legacy estate and, although we are the most used public charging network in the UK, with some of our charge points having delivered more than 700kWh in a single day, we typically see around 70% capacity on the UK’s public charging network at any one time.

Car manufacturers are generally rather vocal about the need to grow the UK’s public charging infrastructure, but the best way to ensure this happens is to ramp up their supply of EVs into the UK. The story of recent years has been a lack of supply – not demand.

When it comes to the physical deployment of public charging infrastructure, there are challenges particularly in getting the prerequisite amount of power to certain sites. The government has already identified this issue and announced £950m to strengthen grid capacity along key roads and motorways in advance of mass EV uptake. We look forward to that funding being made available as soon as possible, as we already have sites with uneconomical grid costs that are otherwise shovel-ready.