Electric vehicle ‘ultra rapid’ charging points to triple at UK service stations

The number of “ultra rapid” electric vehicle charging points at motorway service stations and on key trunk roads in Britain will triple to more than 2,700 under a £300m two-year programme announced on Monday, to unblock some of the barriers to a faster rollout of vital infrastructure.

Ofgem, Britain’s energy market regulator, has approved £300m of funding to upgrade electricity grids so they are able to support the installation of more EV chargers, including the addition of 1,800 new “ultra rapid” points at motorway services.

Unlike slow charging that takes several hours and can be done on driveways or at offices, often at times when there is less demand for electricity, superfast charging that can replenish a battery in 20-40 minutes often requires additional power cables to support the extra electricity demand.

The costs of installing additional power cables to motorway services stations in particular has been one of the major sticking points to a faster rollout of rapid chargers, as they are frequently in remote locations and the costs of upgrading local electricity infrastructure has often proved prohibitive.

The operators of Britain’s motorway service areas have long warned that poor grid connections were preventing them from adding more rapid charging points.

Welcome Break, one of the largest motorway service area operators, has been quoted tens of millions of pounds to get high-speed connectivity to a single site.

Simon Turl, the chair of Road Chef, another operator, last year told the Financial Times the power network was “not fit for purpose”.

Rachel Maclean, transport minister, this month told the FT’s Future of the Car summit: “We do need to do a lot more on the infrastructure side of things.”

She said ministers were targeting six rapid charging points at every service area by 2023, and “we’re working through what we need to do in terms of connections on the ground”.

On Monday, she said the new investment would “greatly improve the resilience of our charging network”.

The House of Commons public accounts committee last week warned that the UK had a “mountain to climb” to meet its ambitious targets to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 and hybrid vehicles that use both an electric battery and conventional motor three years later.

The £300m will be funded via levies on consumer energy bills, although Ofgem said half of it will be met from spending that had already been approved for other projects that had turned out to be cheaper than expected. 

The funding, which will be spread across more than 200 projects approved by Ofgem, including 39 motorway service areas, will also support a further 1,750 charging points in towns and cities.

National Grid, which has been pushing for a network of ultra rapid charging stations along key trunk roads in Britain, welcomed the funding but added that a “long-term approach” to charging infrastructure was still needed “in order to unlock the market and facilitate a fair and efficient transition to EVs for all, ensuring potential EV drivers have confidence in charging”.