Proposals to support the millions of new electric vehicles expected to be on Britain’s roads in the coming decades, while keeping costs down for their users and all energy consumers, have been tabled by the energy regulator Ofgem

It is consulting on plans which will reduce the cost to consumers of meeting the extra demand from electric vehicles as well as connecting them and more renewable generation, battery storage and other technologies to the grid.

According to Ofgem analysis, if EV owners use flexible charging where they only top up outside peak demand times on the grid at least 60% more EVs could be charged compared with inflexible charging where electric vehicles are only charged at peak times.