Carter Jonas’s Energy team is urging landowners and developers to act quickly to explore the potential for Electric Vehicle (EV) charging schemes on their sites. 

The advice follows a recent Government announcement that the ban on petrol and diesel car sales will be brought forward to 2035. In 2018, the Government set out initial plans to ensure at least half of all new cars are ultra-low emission by 2030, and all new cars and vans are zero-emission by 2040.

Commenting on the new proposals, Clare Davey of Carter Jonas's Energy team said: “Now the ban has been brought forward five years, the need to expedite the further roll-out of these sites is ever more pressing. The availability of charge points across the UK is one of the greatest barriers to increasing the use of EVs. 

“Retail sites, offices, estates and plots of land adjacent to the strategic road network are all potentially fit for EV charging development, though in many cases landowners will not have considered it an option. However, there’s a need for landowners to act fast as grid connection is finite and each road network is only capable of sustaining a limited number of these developments.”

The uptake of EVs has been rising steadily in the UK. The number of licensed plug-in vehicles rose to 265,000 in December 2019, an increase from 3,500 in 2013. The Committee for Climate Change currently projects that there will be a substantial need for both rapid and ultra-rapid chargers along motorways, as well as around 27,000 public chargers to meet the demand for charging by 2030. 

As of 1 October 2019, there were just 2,495 rapid devices. To accommodate the growth in EVs, a six-fold increase in public charging points as early as this year is required. Whilst it is projected that 60-70% of charging will be done at home, 20-30% will be done at locations such as visitor attractions and retail sites, and 10% at EV service stations.

There is a range of EV technologies available to meet the varying charging demands of EV users, ranging from slow (3 – 7KW) to ultra-rapid (120 – 350kW).