Grid locked: the UK’s e‑mobility conundrum

Gov­ern­ments world­wide are mak­ing ambi­tious poli­cies to enforce the replace­ment of con­ven­tion­al­ly pow­ered vehi­cles with elec­tric vehi­cles (EVs). Many have enact­ed leg­is­la­tion impos­ing tight dead­lines for this. In the UK, for instance, sales of new petrol- and diesel-pow­ered cars and vans must end by 2030. But will that leave enough time to devel­op suf­fi­cient infra­struc­ture to ensure a smooth tran­si­tion – and who should pay for it? 

A chick­en-and-egg chal­lenge is emerg­ing. The country’s EV infra­struc­ture is far from ready to sup­port a mass roll-out. Busi­ness­es and pri­vate investors are reluc­tant to fund infra­struc­ture while demand is low, but con­sumers, busi­ness­es and pub­lic-sec­tor pur­chasers will remain wary of buy­ing EVs as long as the infra­struc­ture remains in its infan­cy.

The government’s invest­ments include £1.3bn in EV charg­ing points over the next four years, £500m in bat­tery devel­op­ment and £525m in nuclear pow­er, part­ly to help meet the extra demand that the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of trans­port will impose on the grid. But the pri­vate sec­tor and con­sumers them­selves will be expect­ed to play their part in prepar­ing the coun­try for the EV rev­o­lu­tion.

The cre­ation of home charg­ing infra­struc­ture is already a shared respon­si­bil­i­ty. The government’s Elec­tric Vehi­cle Home­charge Scheme, which offers grants up to £500 to help motorists install charge points in their homes, is con­tin­u­ing along­side pri­vate res­i­den­tial devel­op­ments offer­ing such facil­i­ties. There are about 300,000 domes­tic charge points in the UK, where­as there are only 42,000 pub­lic ones, accord­ing to Zap-Map, an app that pin­points the lat­ter for EV dri­vers. More pub­lic charge points are need­ed, giv­en that about 40% of British house­holds have no off-street park­ing. 

The pro­vi­sion of work­place-based EV charg­ing facil­i­ties varies nation­wide and doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly match region­al EV uptake. For instance, research by Knight Frank has found that, while there are about 78,000 ultra-low-emis­sion vehi­cles reg­is­tered in South-East Eng­land – the high­est region­al total in the UK – 44% of busi­ness parks locat­ed inside the M25 have no charge points.   

Pro­fes­sor Nick Reed is the founder and direc­tor of Reed Mobil­i­ty, a con­sul­tan­cy spe­cial­is­ing in envi­ron­men­tal­ly sus­tain­able trans­port. He says that the EV mar­ket requires “vehi­cles that meet the expec­ta­tions and desires of con­sumers” and “decent infra­struc­ture to sup­port remote charg­ing”. 

Reed believes that, if most motorists have access to home charg­ers and buy vehi­cles with a long enough range for most trips, they will be “most­ly sat­is­fied with the expe­ri­ence”. But he acknowl­edges the infra­struc­ture prob­lem in urban areas where off-street charg­ing access can be lim­it­ed. New mod­els of charg­ing may be need­ed, includ­ing concierge ser­vices, where­by EV own­ers pay for their cars to be picked up in the evening, charged overnight and returned in the morn­ing.

Doron Myers­dorf is the co-founder and CEO of Store­Dot, an Israeli com­pa­ny that pro­duces lithi­um-ion bat­ter­ies. He wants both British car mak­ers and the gov­ern­ment to ensure that there are enough bat­ter­ies for the inevitable growth in the num­ber of EVs on the UK’s roads.

“The UK is no dif­fer­ent from any oth­er coun­try with a robust auto­mo­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor,” he says. “The future is elec­tric and that means you need cap­tive capac­i­ty for bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ing – you need to make bat­ter­ies where you make cars. It’s a ques­tion of nation­al secu­ri­ty.”

Myers­dorf would like to see “a joined-up effort – a union of indus­try, acad­e­mia and gov­ern­ment sup­port”. The UK is for­tu­nate in hav­ing plen­ty of engi­neer­ing tal­ent, as well as organ­i­sa­tions such as the UK Bat­tery Indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion Cen­tre, a pub­licly fund­ed facil­i­ty that helps com­pa­nies to take bat­ter­ies from the R&D stage to mass pro­duc­tion, he says. But more needs to be done – and quick­ly. 

“The UK needs more bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ties – more gigafac­to­ries in the pipeline – and its sup­ply chain must be vast­ly enhanced for cru­cial ingre­di­ents, such as lithi­um,” Myers­dorf says. “These are not easy tasks and the clock is tick­ing, so it will require a huge gov­ern­ment-led ini­tia­tive to make things hap­pen in time.”

As EVs increase their mar­ket share glob­al­ly, the car indus­try will go where bat­ter­ies are being pro­duced. Chi­na is lead­ing the way in this respect. In 2020, it account­ed for 77% of glob­al bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ing capac­i­ty, with the US com­ing in a dis­tant sec­ond at 9%, fol­lowed by the rest of Asia (8%) and Europe (also 8%), accord­ing to research by S&P Glob­al Mar­ket­ing Intel­li­gence. This high­lights the urgent need for the UK to boost bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ing capac­i­ty in tan­dem with increas­ing EV out­put, estab­lish robust sup­ply chains and attract appro­pri­ate­ly skilled peo­ple.

Ener­gy stor­age tech­nol­o­gy will be essen­tial in meet­ing the pow­er demands cre­at­ed by the EV rev­o­lu­tion. House­holds are like­ly to play a role in this.

David Hall is vice-pres­i­dent of pow­er sys­tems in the UK and Ire­land at Schnei­der Elec­tric, a French com­pa­ny spe­cial­is­ing in smart ener­gy man­age­ment tech. He says: “The good news is that, as more and more house­holds invest in EVs, more and more of them will effec­tive­ly have a large elec­tric­i­ty stor­age device, capa­ble of pow­er­ing the aver­age home for sev­er­al days, in their garage.”

Hall notes that sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion smart meters can mea­sure both con­sump­tion and gen­er­a­tion. The pro­vi­sion of pric­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty will enable motorists to store and resell unused ener­gy back to the grid, using their EVs’ bat­ter­ies as mobile stor­age sys­tems.

“EVs have the poten­tial to turn today’s mod­els of sup­ply and demand on their head,” he says. “They offer a way for con­sumers to charge for the ener­gy they sup­ply to the grid in much the same way that they cur­rent­ly pay for what they use.”

Bernard Magee, direc­tor of EV charg­ing at Siemens, agrees. “The bat­tery will take from the grid when it’s charg­ing – and at times when ener­gy is cheap­est – but poten­tial­ly feed ener­gy back into the grid when demand is there,” he says. “These stor­age sys­tems can also draw pow­er off the grid for lat­er use. If the grid becomes inac­ces­si­ble, off-grid green ener­gy sup­plies can be used.” 

As the 2030 dead­line approach­es, calls for more state spend­ing on EV infra­struc­ture and a coher­ent tran­si­tion plan will become loud­er. In May this year, the House of Com­mons Pub­lic Accounts Com­mit­tee said there was a “moun­tain to climb” to meet the tran­si­tion tar­get, stat­ing that it was uncon­vinced that the UK gov­ern­ment had “suf­fi­cient­ly thought through” its EV roll-out plans.  

More­over, pub­lic transport’s role in the tran­si­tion needs to be addressed from a consumer’s view­point. If train fares in par­tic­u­lar are uncom­pet­i­tive and con­sumer con­fi­dence is lack­ing in EVs for longer jour­neys, this will add to the government’s pol­i­cy and fund­ing headaches.

Alter­na­tive rev­enue streams, such as road-user charg­ing, espe­cial­ly with reduced rev­enues from fuel duty, may be expand­ed. Reed says that such a move would need to be “designed equi­tably” so that it wouldn’t harm groups such as low-income fam­i­lies. But a sys­tem that charges users based on a com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors, such as the vehicle’s size, the times it’s being dri­ven and the roads it’s using, “could be pow­er­ful in reduc­ing the car­bon emis­sions of the trans­port sys­tem”. 

Util­i­ty com­pa­nies will have a role to play in the EV roll-out, as the e‑mobility market’s growth increas­es the pres­sure on the nation’s pow­er gen­er­a­tion and deliv­ery infra­struc­ture.

“These com­pa­nies need to invest in upgrad­ing their net­works with­out cre­at­ing upward pres­sure on the cost of elec­tric­i­ty for con­sumers and busi­ness­es,” Hall says.

As EV usage increas­es over the com­ing years, a mix of indus­try inno­va­tion, gov­ern­ment and util­i­ty com­pa­ny invest­ment, as well as pos­i­tive con­sumer engage­ment will all be essen­tial to devel­op the infra­struc­ture need­ed to make the UK’s net-zero ambi­tions a real­i­ty.