Motorway services firm Roadchef has installed new EV chargers at its site in Sandbach, Cheshire, using a drilling technique developed for the oil and gas industry.
The firm has added six new ultra-rapid 350kW bays at Sandbach North services, which sits between Junctions 16 and 17 on the M6, and the new units were installed using horizontal directional drilling (HDD) to bore out the earth for the electricity cables that supply them.
This involves a steerable drill entering the ground some distance from the chargers’ ultimate home, before being guided horizontally underground to their siting position, all while minimising on-site disruption. Roadchef says the new chargers were added ”without compromising existing site operations”.
HDD evolved from slanted oil-well drilling, first seen in the late 1920s, and was developed in California in the 1970s by the oil and gas industry to facilitate the laying of pipes under rivers and roads.
Earlier this year Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks used HDD in a £9.6m project that saw 260 metres of cables run as deep as 45m beneath the M27 in Hampshire to facilitate chargepoint expansion, all without disrupting traffic.
Walt Antrim, Roadchef’s head of EV comments: “As EV adoption accelerates, we’re focused on ensuring drivers have access to fast, reliable charging where it matters most. This new installation strengthens that provision and helps make long-distance electric travel more practical on one of the UK’s busiest routes.”
