Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce Phase Three: Delivering System Success

 As awareness and excitement for electric vehicles grows, ‘charging anxiety’ has replaced range anxiety as a key barrier to EV adoption.

Whilst this is partly down to a lack of consumer understanding and ‘misinformation’, there’s no doubt that further investment into the UK’s public              charging infrastructure is required, if we’re to give motorists both the means and confidence to switch to electric and achieve our phase out targets.

This new in-depth industry-wide study from the Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce explores the different business models currently used and expected      within the charging market. It provides policy-makers with the information and analysis to make clear, bold decisions to help remove the barriers and          offer   the solutions and incentives necessary to encourage the sizeable investment required within this rapidly developing sector.

Just as data now dominates our daily digital lives, it too is at the heart of our smart charging aspirations and an intrinsic part of achieving the UK’s electric revolution and zero emission targets. It is therefore imperative that data and security standards and protocols are established now, as the market undergoes rapid growth, before it is too late.

This report from the Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce explores the issues and uncertainties around charging device interoperability, cyber security, data privacy and grid flexibility and stability; and the interventions and actions urgently required to overcome these challenges. Clearly no small task, this necessitates a collaborative, iterative approach by all stakeholders to now define and advise Government on the standards and specifications needed to ensure an efficient, equitable and affordable roll out of smart EV charging infrastructure in the UK.

Our future EV ownership experience will be driven and enhanced by data – both from ourselves and between chargepoint operators and the energy system. And whilst this promises a personalised and seamless user journey that’s better for us, the environment and our wallets, it is dependent upon consumers being willing to share their data – something many are not comfortable with.

This report from the Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce recognises the vital importance of data privacy and security and the need to build consumer trust and confidence in our EV charging systems. By mapping out the EV data flows and digital activity across the EV charging environment, this report provides a gap analysis of outstanding data infrastructure outputs, identifies the key issues we face and provides data solutions for optimising the UK’s energy system to deliver better consumer outcomes and policy decisions.

Commercial fleets play a pivotal role within the UK economy and could lead our electric vehicle revolution. However, whilst many UK operators have ambitious targets to electrify by 2030, the perceived lack of an adequate charging infrastructure is often cited as a key barrier to the large scale rollout of electrified fleets.

This Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce report provides valuable insight into industries’ opinion of the current EV charging options and, crucially, their views on future requirements to enable the mass uptake of EVs by fleets. Assessments come from key stakeholders from public and private sector fleet operators, in addition to local government, infrastructure and energy sectors.

These findings have informed the EV Energy Taskforce modelling to assess our future charging infrastructure.