‘EVs are mainly charged at home, right?’ 

 

…so you may believe, based on national studies reported in the media. However, half of the homes in London have no driveway and, in inner London, around two-thirds of cars are parked on-street. 

This highlights the critical role of public and workplace charging in making an equitable transition away from fossil fuels. In major urban areas, this combines with the higher availability of sustainable transport options and shorter travel distances to mean the use of public charging points can be proportionally greater, with home charging being a backup option for many drivers when available. 

 

Market feedback indicates three main issues in urban areas – insufficient public chargers, excessive charging durations, and problems accessing power (at least, in a reasonable timeframe and at a viable cost). 

 

Many urban chargers are lower-powered models due to a focus on the number, rather than the right type, of chargers.  This causes excessive dwell times and user uncertainty that a charger will be available and working, highlighting the importance of specifying ‘the right chargers, in the right place, at the right time’ – for example, using higher-powered chargers to reduce charging dwell times.

 

Whilst charging and vehicle technologies are rapidly evolving, with improving range and charge times, delivering the right charging equipment in the right places to address increasing consumer demand is challenging. At present, charge times remain significantly longer than the time taken to refuel an internal combustion car or van, particularly where home charging may not be possible. This undermines the benefit of not needing to drive to a charging location, and amplifies the requirement for on-street and community charging locations near to people’s homes.

 

Delivering the Vision
There are more than 20 million individual trips per day in Greater London. With the Mayor targeting 80% of travel by active or public transport in 2041, there will still be a significant residual demand for road transport including buses, taxis, delivery vehicles and cars – including the rapidly-increasing EV fleet and future autonomous vehicles (AVs).  

SLR’s work to enhance the sustainability of new and existing communities uses evidenced data to validate, and agree, future visions for local travel, including key infrastructure such as mobility hubs. These centralised travel nodes can offer community facilities, third places of work, local retail, food and leisure provision, enabling users to transfer between bus, rail, walk, cycle, shared mobility, micromobility and EVs. 

Many of the ‘tier 1’ charging sites – locations with access to significant travel flows and suitable grid connections – have already been secured by operators. This means that it is even more critical to qualify, and quantify, the likely performance of new EV charging locations in terms of future demand, utilisation, access to power and construction costs. 

 

It has never been more important to be able to evidence and optimise new EV charging locations to provide clarity on value across the planning, operational, enhancement and decommissioning phases of each asset:

 

• SLR is helping owners of site portfolios to understand which sites are likely to best meet user demand based on key metrics and bespoke datasets including local travel movements, proximity factors, EV uptake forecasts, travel distances and power. This enables us to map in a live, shareable format, how sites meet both the public use-case and the client’s business case.

• This approach also assists local and national government in ensuring equitable access to EV charging as part of a just transition. For example, where are the priority areas within Boroughs where EV charging provision may be delayed and public investment / land can be used to deliver for local communities? Can ad hoc land parcels, meanwhile uses, or out-of-hours access to council car parks and depots unlock charging provision in areas which are less likely to attract external investment? Tools such as SLR’s ‘Sift Modelling’ can match high- and lower-performing sites, enabling asset managers to take a portfolio to market which is attractive to investors whilst delivering social benefits.

• Our ‘Detail’ level assessments add further depth and new data site-by-site. SLR’s proprietary national EV travel model shows drivers’ propensity to charge based on journey, vehicle performance and use case. Alongside additional detail relating to traffic, land-uses, competing charging provision, grid capacity, and future technology changes, SLR builds comprehensive, data-driven forecasts of future charging demand and utilisation. We’re providing this service to EV charging operators to enhance business cases; lenders / investors who need to understand the value proposition in detail; portfolio and single-site landowners; and site operators across sectors including retail, leisure, commercial and industrial that are either installing EV charging or negotiating with potential suppliers.

• As sites progress through the planning process, we’re optimising critical details such as layout (including access by people with mobility problems), ensuring sites’ environmental resilience, liaising with utility companies to secure grid capacity based on detailed load calculations, undertaking civil engineering design, and advising on contracts / tenders.

 

Access to power has become as important as access to land. Significant delays in securing suitable grid capacity for new development sites mean that SLR regularly advises on power procurement strategies, smart charging technologies, dynamic load management, on-site renewable energy options, and the use of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) to buffer the grid and deliver more and / or faster charging at peak times.

Provision of charging infrastructure is closely related to the development of other traditional and emerging infrastructures across the capital including utility and travel networks, digital connectivity and indeed strategic housing. EV charging presents opportunities for microgrids and localised energy hubs – particularly as Vehicle to Grid (V2G) emerges in the coming years – for example through the increased use of off-plot parking to agglomerate EV storage capacity alongside renewables and BESS within new developments.

 

It is critical that we can present the EV opportunity to investors – public or private – in a quantifiable and evidence-based way, and that we can account for current and emerging technologies when planning for the additional electrical load associated with decarbonisation. 

 

Whilst opportunities for increased local energy production and consumption can play a major role, city-wide decarbonisation proposals go beyond silos and local boundaries. Likewise, what works in inner London does not necessarily work outside the centre and vice versa.

 

SLR’s investment in research & development, big data processes, in-house tools and global expertise directly supports the strategic, local and micro-scale inputs needed to achieve just and equitable decarbonisation across Greater London.