Rural Charge Weekly #5: The Story of a Lonely Rural EV Public Charge Point
And the lessons that all stakeholders in the Charging Community can learn
I’d like you to introduce you to Electra, the lonely EV charge point.
Electra spends all of her time in a small car park on the outskirts of the village of Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. When I say outskirts, to be more specific, about 1 mile outside the village. She’s circled in red in the screen grab I grabbed from Zapmap.
I’ve become great friends with Electra not because I’m using her to charge my EV but because she just happen to be close to the family farm where I grew up and return to on an occasional basis. It was my Mum who first alerted me to the fact that Electra had arrived in the car park. Eagle eyed as always, she spotted them on her daily drive to the shops.
My immediate reaction to this news was bewilderment. Why on earth would a public chargepoint be installed at such an outlying location? Look at the map and you’ll see that this isn’t the sort of location that attracts much traffic. I can tell you exactly who does use the stretch of road where the chargers are located.
Tractor drivers (my brother)
Delivery Drivers (delivering) supplies to the farm
The Post Van
Tourists who choose to walk along the shoreline
Dog walkers
Campervan drivers (who park up overnight)
The very small number of staff working at the Arran Outdoor Centre adjacent to the chargepoints
How many of these drivers will have a need to use this chargepoint? You might think the staff at the outdoor centre could use them but a) they don’t drive an EV, and b) the Centre has its own private chargepoint to charge the electric minibuses that are used to pick up and drop off the kids who visit it.
After bewilderment came the dawning realisation that this chargepoint was installed at this exact location because a suitably powerful grid connection to the Outdoor Centre was already in place. In other words, for North Ayrshire Council (who own the Outdoor Centre) it was a lower cost opportunity. Nothing to do with meeting any level of future demand for charging as it simply will not materialise at this location.
I feel sad for Electra because as much as she enjoys a lovely view across Lamlash Bay to the Holy Isle, she isn’t going to make many friends and the ones she does may well be dogs who use her as a convenient place to cock a leg and pee. Maybe I’m overly pessimistic. Maybe in time, as more locals and visitors to the island drive EVs she will be better used. However, can she ever be used enough to wash her face so to speak?
The moral of the story
This story links to a much broader ongoing conversation about how effectively Councils will spend the hundreds of millions of pounds of public funds that are being awarded to them to install infrastructure in the more remote locations that Charge Point Operators wouldn’t otherwise do.
Crudely speaking, the idea is that this funding will help CPOs to swallow some bitter lemons (low use, low ROI chargepoints in rural locations) in exchange for the sweet taste of the juicy oranges that are found in high traffic volume areas. Through the lens of a “Just Transition”, this is an attractive proposition. Wherever you live or visit, no matter how remote, you’ll never be far from a public chargepoint.
It strikes me that this is a strategy plucked from the same playbook that the Govt has used to support the roll out of fixed and mobile broadband across the country. Ducts are dug and masts erected in remote locations to provide a minimum level of speed/ service to households. Private sector operators would never dream of funding this work themselves.
Does this strategy translate neatly into EV charging world? I don’t think so because unlike broadband, in a future world where everyone drives an EV, the majority of rural charging infrastructure can be delivered directly to homes, local businesses and community groups by CPOs. By and large, this will be lower speed chargers that satisfy the needs of local people and visitors who are happy to charge overnight at lower tariffs.
Furthermore, where there are surges in demand (e.g. during peak tourist seasons, during festivals etc), with intelligent planning, they can be met by temporary charging services of which there are a growing number of suppliers.
Rethinking Rural EV Charging Strategies.
For those of us who are thinking deeply about this topic, we’ve got to challenge our and other people’s assumptions on what the right long term solutions are when it comes to rural charging. Just because public money is on the table doesn’t mean it should be spent on assets that become stranded within a short period of time. As Chris Chamberlain, CEO of Dodona Analytics argues in a recent blog post titled “The economic power of happy chargers”
with the right policies and placement, every EV charger can become a little local economic engine, transforming how we fuel not just cars, but the community that surrounds them.
I concur. The transition to EVs isn’t just about creating a more sustainable planet, it’s equally if not more about creating sustainable communities. The small businesses that are the bedrock of our rural and communities have an opportunity to install chargepoints for social as well as economic good.
As I’ve attempted to visualise in this infographic, there are so many different types of public facing rural businesses that could provide charging infrastructure. If most of them installed charge points and made them available to EV drivers, how many publicly funded ones would really be needed?
This is a discussion we badly need to have because for EVs to be adopted by the mass market, there needs to be an appreciation that for most EV drivers, time and money are scarce resources. Is it “just” that an EV driver who needs access to a public charger should be pushed towards a location that they otherwise wouldn’t choose to spend time or money at?
The owner of a local coffee shop will be delighted that you’re spending 30 minutes with them sipping a coffee while you’re EV charges. However, why did you really go there? Was it only because the coffee shop was the only place that a free charge point was available? Would it not be smarter to install chargepoints at private and community owned businesses such as the fitness centre, yoga studio, or the community centre that you’re already in the habit of using on a regular basis because they provide a valuable service?
Puttng Social Value before Profit
If profit is the primary arbitrator over where public chargepoints are deployed, it’s to be expected that they will be found next to higher footfall retail businesses. They are a hook that can attract more customers to spend more money. While in a capitalist society, there is fundamentally nothing wrong with a business looking to make more money, it feels ethically wrong if the only reason a customer visits is to charge their EV.
Placing a higher priority on community wellbeing gives permission for Local Authorities and CPOs to collaborate with local people on identifying the chargepoint locations that create the most social return on investment. The health and wellbeing of the community is improved not because the local fitness centre now offers EV charging, but because their customers know that when they’ve purchased an EV, they can continue to get fit while their car gets a quick charging boost without having spent more money. It’s a win-win proposition.
Speaking of propositions, a core pillar of the benefit of owning an EV is that it saves you money versus continuing to run a petrol/diesel vehicle. This only materialises if you have more money in your bank account at the end of the month which is less likely to happen if you’re monthly coffee and snacks expenditure as doubled!
Caring through Sharing
If we care about our rural communities then we should explore the possibilities for EVs and the supporting charging infrastructure to be shared. The current business cases that shape investment decisions are underpinned by assumptions on the volume of EVs that will be on our roads over the next few decades. The Department for Transport (DfT) forecasts don’t anticipate that there will be any meaningful reduction so the modelling behind the 2030 target of 300k public chargers across the UK reflects this reality.
This is a reality that is of the Government’s own making. There are policies that could be promoted with greater conviction that would reduce traffic volumes. Opportunities for wider use of public transport and car sharing are within the powers of Government. Where more shared journeys are made, the benefit is a need for less charging infrastructure. A bus carrying 30 people from which 50% of the passengers would otherwise have driven an EV changes demand profiles. Less infrastructure and energy needed to direct to public chargers. The bus rather than the car becomes the focus of the charging conversation.
Caring also respects the fact that there are and will continue to be people in rapidly ageing rural communities who don’t have access to a car or don’t drive for health or financial reasons. They still want to live independently and will need to travel so what will a world of EVs look like to them? It should mean that they have access to an electric bus/minibus, taxi or community car club EV when needed. This implies that these vehicles are able to charge at the right times in the right places, so they are fully operational.
Final Thoughts
In summary, with the rapid advances in the sophistication of charging hardware and software, there are more opportunities to develop innovative business models that local businesses to meet the charging needs of locals and visitors.
What we can’t afford is to have many more stories of lonely chargers like Electra that are unused and unloved. If you’ve come across some unloved chargers in your community then please share with me.
Related Industry News
There have been a flurry of EV charging related annoucements over the last week. I wrote more about them in my 5 interesting things post on Friday which you can read here. The news of most signifiance from a rural perspective is:
There are lots of depots in rural areas that will struggle to get a suitable grid connction in any meaninful timescale so this is an issue where we need to work through the costs and practicalities of delivering off-grid energy generation, storage and transmission infrastructure (aka microgrids) as a means to accelerating the transition to eMobility.
Chargepoint Confusion - Are there really 100k Public Chargers in the UK
Last week, Octopus Energy announced via a lot of fanfare that the UK had reached a key milestone of 100k public chargers. However, they arrived at this number using their own method of counting which is different to the “official” one used by the Govt which as of end of March was a shade over 75k. Whatever the true number is, we know that if you live in a rural area, you’re much less likely to be in proximity to one. As I discussed in last week’s newsletter, this is not necessarily a huge issue as coverage and accessibility should consider the role that independent local businesses can play in meeting future demand.
Event News
Another blatent bit of self promotion to remind you that I’m organising what may be the UK’s first Rural eMobility Summit? It will take place online over 2 days on Sept 17-18th. What I think makes this event a little bit different is the fact that it will bring together stakeholders working on on-road, off-road, air and marine eMobility. I’ve already got some stellar speakers and panellists lined up with details to be revealed here and elsewhere soon. You can find out more about the Summit and register by clicking on the image below.
