NEW home builds – along with street lamp posts – will require recharging points for electric vehicles.

That’s the plan of Government in its recently produced vision for a zero emission future called ‘The Road to Zero‘.

The Government is backing its plans with a £400 million Charging Infrastructure Investment Fund to help accelerate charging infrastructure deployment.

In addition, the Government says it will provide grant support through the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme (EVHS) until March 2019, with installations becoming smart enabled.

And it will  increase the grant level of the Workplace Charging Scheme from £300 per socket to 75% of the purchase and installation costs of a chargepoint capped at a
maximum of £500 per socket.

Gerry Keany, Chief Executive of industry association BVRLA said:

“The increased grant available through the Workplace Charging Scheme will encourage more companies to install charge points.”

Erik Fairbairn, CEO and Founder of Pod Point, the UK’s largest independent chargepoint provider added:

“The governments Road To Zero strategy shows the government’s ongoing positive support of zero emission transport

“In headline, the strategy shows some sensible proposals to increase the amount of EV charging infrastructure across the UK, with a good understanding of the need to rollout charging across homes, workplace, and public locations. 

“The rollout of EV charging has been accelerating rapidly over the past couple of years, mainly through heavy investment from private companies such as Pod Point who are dedicated to building national infrastructure. It is good to see this additional support from the government, which will allow for further acceleration.”

Robert Evans, CEO of Cenex – organisers of the Low Carbon Vehicle Event, commented:

“We are pleased to see an increased focus on charging infrastructure as well as its impact on the energy system.

“At Cenex we are already actively involved in demonstrating how electric vehicles can add value to the grid and generate additional benefits to both vehicle owners and charging locations via the use of smart and bidirectional (V2G) chargers.”