Forecourt operators looking to install electric vehicle chargepoints are facing delays of four years or more due to a lack of capacity in the grid, and a shortage of electrical engineers.
Planning applications can also cause issues for those seeking to capitalise on the rising number of electric cars taking to the UK’s roads.
The warnings come from Tom Hurst, UK and Ireland country director for Fastned, a Dutch EV chargepoint firm that has just completed an ultra-rapid charging hub in Banbridge, Northern Ireland.
“It’s a fundamental challenge”, Hurst warns those considering installing EV chargers. “They may find that there is no longer any grid [capacity] in the local area, and they’re waiting for quite a few years to get that power – if they can get it at all.”
Hurst says Fastned has multiple sites with planning permission for new EV chargepoints, but that it “can’t get power for three or four years” at these locations.
Other sources familiar with the matter have told Forecourt Trader that some firms wanting to install chargers have been told they must wait as long as nine years due to infrastructure constraints.
EV charging is only one of the points of pressure being placed on the UK’s power networks, as the number of staff qualified to facilitate new projects isn’t keeping pace with demand for sophisticated, high-power electrical installations.
“Whether it’s data centres, wind farms, solar farms, EV charging, heat pumps, new housing developments – all of that requires grid capacity, and it really depends on where you get into the queue”, Hurst says.
“There’s a consent process, there’s a planning process, but ultimately it comes down to the physical resources of the engineers, or the planners and various humans who deliver this stuff reliably and safely”.
These issues are likely to cause significant problems for drivers of electric cars, who are already battling with poor reliability and a patchwork network of public chargers, and whose numbers will only grow as sales of EVs are legally mandated to increase year-on-year until only zero-emission cars are allowed to be sold from new in 2035.
The UK’s public charging network varies enormously depending on location: while much of the strategic road network of motorways and A roads is well served by rapid and ultra-rapid chargers (those that can charge respectively at 50kW and 100kW+), there remain significant ‘cold spots’, particularly in the west and north of England. Fastned’s new Northern Irish endeavour, which hosts 12 charging bays and six chargers delivering electricity at up to 400kW, meanwhile, may be the country’s fastest, but ultra-rapid units make up just 4.5% of Northern Ireland’s network of 687 chargers.
Forecourt operators looking to install EV chargers should take heart that once they have been able to get chargers installed, a charging hub should, Hurst says, “cover its costs and make a margin – there should be no concerns about that.” Forecourt Trader has been told separately that from an investment perspective, chargepoint installations should reach maturity within 18-24 months.
Hurst adds that although “decommissioning pumps isn’t something that’s going to happen, for most parties, for 15 or 20 years,” with EV sales mandated to grow, and wet-stock fuel sales falling in conjunction, “operators should be looking hard at how they’re going to engage with this in the future.”
While much of the public charging network receives criticism for its extensiveness and dependability, Fastned highlights that its chargers perform consistently well in reliability surveys, while Hurst says there is another silver lining to the current environment:
“If you want to guarantee your kids’ success, get them trained in electrical engineering; that market will only continue to grow, and there are jobs for life there. A lot of the roles in the electrical distribution and transmission side are commanding fantastic salaries, mainly because of limited supply.”
