Smart Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging legislation news

Really interesting news in terms of ensuring that all new EV chargers should be smart.

Thanks for posting here, @Jeffus!

Sure our EV owners here will agree, this certainly sounds like a step in the right direction. What do you make of this news EVers - @sylm_2000, @MrPuds, @Transparent, @PeterR1947, @tesla_model_3, @Jequinlan?

Yes - it looks like HMG policy is heading in the right direction. Remember this still has to be drafted into legislation and the timescales have already slipped.

So if I was to abide by this strategy to install a ‘smart’ charger, what would I need from my Energy Supplier?

1: a genuine Time Of Use tariff. I wouldn’t want to have a Smart charger where my Supplier had the capability to feed electricity to my EV battery in such a way that I was financially worse off.

You think that wouldn’t happen?

Well it’s within the T&Cs of the existing PowerVault Storage Battery Trial in which I’m a participant. I don’t think it was intentional… it’s just that OVO failed to notice the significant cost increases to the customers.

2: The charging schedules need to reflect the actual supply/demand statistics for my area, rather than just blithely follow the whole-GB figures for National Grid.

I live on the Western edge of an area (Cornwall) which exhibits an abundance of renewable power which can’t be fed back through Grid Supply Point transformers to the rest of the country. My Smart charger ‘on’ periods need to track and follow that regional generation.

It isn’t really that difficult. The energy-mix data and a 1 week look-ahead forecast are readily available from my 33kV Bulk Supply Point and have been so for the past 6 + years.

3: I need a charging schedule which doesn’t create over-loading of my local substation or its 440v feeds to houses (particularly relevant for underground cables).

4: I need a schedule which doesn’t create additional losses at the substation by phase imbalance and harmonics. There’s no point sending control signals to charge my EV if that wastes energy as heat in the transformer windings because domestic chargers are single-phase devices.

You think that wouldn’t happen?

Well it did when HMG introduced FIT payments for home-owners to install PV Solar Panels on their roofs! Substation losses doubled over the following two decades.

Is all this feasible?

Yes. It may cost to do so, but Kaluza should be in a position to provide OVO with the required capability by using the Flex Platform - an advantage available to few other Energy Suppliers.

Do I think it will happen in time for the new law to be implemented next year (2022)?

No… because development work on the Flex Platform has been concentrated on financial benefits to OVO Group Ltd and attracting additional investment.

It needs a very rapid change of direction to redress the balance.

Us customers are more prepared and willing to embrace the requirement for mandatory Smart chargers than OVO is.

Ahhh in the time it’s taken me to write that comment, Transparent has already replied. Typical! 

As a central figure in the earlier V2G Trial, I’d also be interested to hear what @D10hul has to say about this strategy from the Government.

Discussion point:

Suppose that @Simon1D , myself and a few others successfully implement the Open Energy Monitor system we’re exploring.

Suppose I then add further inputs to give me

• sunlight forecast for the next day (for Solar Panel generation)
• the energy-mix data for my local area, which is already available from Western Power, my DNO

And I then use this information to make ‘smart’ decisions of when I charge my VW ID3 and at what rate, using the 32A socket I’ve already got and the WiFi switch which controls that socket…

Would that satisfy the proposed legislation for a ‘smart charger’ on the grounds that it’s actually providing a better granularity of charging logic than any currently-available commercial charger?

Or would I be pursued for breaking the law because I haven’t had an ‘approved’ smart charger installed (yet!)?

This is hypothetical of course. I’m really hoping that the Flex Platform will actually provide the level of smart control I’m looking for by the time this legislation is enacted!

Hampshire County Council have taken a proactive approach. They publish guidelines for EV charger cables across pavements for example.

I wanted to share another thought provoking post from our very own @Chris_OVO, about EV charging infrastructure:

One of the most famous examples of "Survivorship Bias" is how the US Military in WW2 were reinforcing planes based on the areas on returning planes that had taken the most damage.

This was flawed however, as the bullet holes in returning aircraft represented areas where a bomber could take damage and still fly well enough to return safely to base.

It was instead proposed that they reinforce areas where the returning aircraft were unscathed, inferring that planes hit in those areas were the ones most likely to be lost.

So based on this, are local councils making a mistake in selecting their chargepoint locations based on high levels of EV presence (data provided by where vehicles are registered)?

In a way makes total sense - "put chargers where EVs are" seems obvious, however it's actually not that simple.

You see, the EV dense areas are the survivors in this case, and don't necessarily deserve the focus. The majority of EV journeys are done using a single charge from home. Significant uptake of EVs suggests there ISN'T an infrastructure issue in that area.

Non EV dense areas are the failure points, and perhaps indicative of a lack of driveways and therefore suitable charging infrastructure that's required to run an EV. Unless there's a socioeconomic reason (income, education, employment for instance) then infrastructure is a leading candidate for failure to adopt EVs in one area.

Now this doesn't always make for a good commercial case / ROI for a network operator when installing a £30k charger for instance, but for a local authority who is using taxpayer money, maybe supporting the adoption of EVs could improve air quality and therefore see less need for spending on trial AQ improvement schemes, on fines, or on healthcare...

@Geoff Dickson you posted a similar thread this week comparing the EV charging infrastructure of the UK vs Canada. Should we avoid the potential trap of ‘putting chargers where EVs are’?

I know @Chris_OVO works in South Wales somewhere.

So, for his interest, I’ve just pulled up the Western Power Future Energy Scenario maps for the Swansea area, and looked at the projections for Public EV Chargers “en route”. These are the ones which visitors/travellers are most likely to be directed to.

The darker the shade of blue, the higher is the concentration compared with all areas of the UK. The meaning of that shade therefore varies according to which year you decide to view.

To assist with interpretation, I’ve given the actual figure for the area of Swansea served by the Uplands 33kV Primary substation. In all years, this has the highest number of public charge points.

The Scenario I selected was “System Transformation”. This reflects the most likely outcome if the Distribution Network Operator gets on with upgrading the Distribution Grid without political intervention/investment or the public taking action to enforce a higher rate of change towards Net Zero.

These maps suggests that tourism in the Swansea/Gower area is going to take a big hit unless there is intervention from local councils or the Welsh Government.

So I’ve basically picked up precisely the point which @Chris_OVO was making, but put forward some illustrative figures to better show his argument.

Yes… those Swansea charging points will definitely have a knock on effect…. in 2040!

There may be several reasons why the projection indicates very few en-route chargers over the next decade. I assume poor Distribution Grid infrastructure in picturesque rural areas (aka tourist hot-spots) is one of them because the FES map is from Western Power.

However, the OVO Group is in a strong position to overcome that deficiency in the meantime.

South Wales has abundant resources for production of renewable energy. The Flex Platform would be able to make better use of those local resources regardless of the infrastructure further afield. Simply use the electricity which is already there!