EV charging and its implications across transport, power, buildings and planning

Electrifying the UK’s vehicle fleet is widely seen as an important contributor to the reduction of carbon emissions derived from transport, alongside active travel and increased use of shared and public transport. For EVs to replace the existing fleet, access to charging facilities, at home, work or in public locations, will be of critical importance. The deployment of EV charging infrastructure is expected to create various issues through the integration of previously separate sectors, including transport, electricity and housing. Many of these issues are only becoming apparent as deployment of EV charging infrastructure advances.

This report summaries the issues arising in the deployment of at-home EV charging infrastructure in the UK. It is based on the thematic analysis of expert deliberation across four workshops held in March 2022, capturing the combined insights of 52 experts. The workshops were convened to discuss the UK Government’s statutory guidance on the provision of at-home EV Charging in all new residential buildings (‘Part S’ of the Buildings regulations), which came into force in June 2022.

The report summaries emergent issues for each sector before discussing six cross cutting issues.

Diverse sectoral issues

For sustainable transport Part S is clearly important in the electrification of the UK’s vehicle fleet but has the potential to overshadow broader forms of sustainable mobility including cycling, walking and use of public transport. In practice installing individual, on-plot chargers was deemed straight forward, whilst the provision of shared infrastructure in communal settings presents challenges in terms of management, billing and access. These challenges raise concerns about how Part S supports shared mobility solutions like communal charge points and car clubs.

For the electricity sector, Part S will result in increased energy demand and will likely require upgrading low voltage distribution networks. Without strategic infrastructure planning some new housing developments are becoming financially unviable.

Within the buildings sector Part S was expected to face resistance from developers for increasing development costs, which they viewed as an unfair burden. In addition, some feared the deployment of EV charging may be traded-off against other social benefits such as affordable housing.

For land-use planning Part S brings to light the competing social goals of decarbonisation and affordable housing, highlighting the need to integrate planning across the traditionally separate sectors of electricity, transport and housing.

Emergent cross cutting issues

1. Making deployment affordable – mandating additional infrastructure will increase costs for housing developers, network operators and consumers. How to minimise these costs was the most widely shared concern to arise across all workshops.
2. Allocating costs of deployment – related, it is not clear who should pay for additional infrastructure and who should be allowed to benefit from it through increased revenues. Various options exist.
3. Ensuring equitable coverage – because Part S places increased costs on developers, some less profitable developments may be challenged or halted, raising questions about equitable access to charging infrastructure in different parts of the country, between north and south and between urban and rural areas.
4. Developing innovative business models – innovation in infrastructure and operation are required to smooth deployment whilst creating new customer services offers will be key to the asset utilisation and sustaining growth.
5. Balancing between coordinated versus piecemeal deployment – Whilst Part S promotes market-driven deployment, a coordinated approach to infrastructure rollout is more likely to lower costs and ensure a more equitable distribution of costs.
6. Connecting land-use and grid planning – to benefit from a more coordinated approach to EV deployment the actors, governance mechanisms and times scales that currently separate land-use and grid planning need to be brought together.