DfT announces £56m funding boost for EV charge point installations

The announcement by transport minister Jesse Norman will help deliver up to 2,400 charge point installations in the short term, and ‘tens of thousands’ in the long term.

According to DfT, the funding will expand the existing the Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) pilot, boost the existing On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) and help councils across England secure resources to develop in-house expertise and capability to coordinate charge point plans and work with private operators.

In addition to expanding three of the original LEVI pilot schemes in Barnet, Durham and North Yorkshire, there are 16 new pilot schemes across England.

In total, £22m of government funding for the pilot areas is supported by £17m of private funding and £2m from public funds across local authorities.

In addition to expanding the pilot scheme, the government has launched an £8m LEVI Capability Fund designed to equip local authorities with the know how to scale up their charging strategies.

The funding will help local authorities work in tandem with private business and charge point operators to drive the sustainable growth of local networks, building and utilising their collective knowledge and expertise to deliver the most ambitious charge point plans for their area.

“It is great to see the government making a real commitment to the EV rollout, however, if it wants to make it a viable option for consumers to use electrical vehicles they must ensure that charging points meet the demands of electric vehicle sales,” commented Justin Godfrey-Cass, head of Transport Solutions at Wireless Logic. “The EV charge point rollout has been hampered by planning constraints, cost of installation, need for access, and the need for resilient and highly secure two-way connectivity in locations where wired infrastructure isn’t always readily available. The whole process can take weeks, making it hard for councils to keep up with the demand of EV sales.”

Godfrey-Cass continued: “As the EV charge point rollout begins to take form, it will ultimately represent critical national infrastructure to the public and businesses, so the importance of having secure connectivity cannot be overlooked. Massive EV adoption also presents a significant load-balancing challenge for energy service providers. As charge points are rolled out it becomes harder and harder to track whether devices are a load or a source of power on the network."