Government announces funding boost for EV infrastructure

The Government has announced that it will spend almost £40 million on improving the infrastructure for electric vehicles.

9th July 2019 by Networks

Government announces funding boost for EV infrastructure

Twelve projects are set to receive a share of the £37m funding, to support the creation of innovations including wireless charging technologies, meaning electric vehicles of the future could charge without the need to plug in a cable.

Future of Mobility Minister, Michael Ellis, said: “We’re charging up the transport revolution and investing in technologies to transform the experience for electric vehicle drivers.

“Ensuring the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles is reliable and innovative is encouraging more people to join the record numbers of ultra-low emission vehicle users already on UK roads.”

Urban Foresight, a smart city consultancy, has been awarded over £3 million to roll out ‘pop-up’ chargers which are built into the pavement and provide a discreet, safe and low-cost charging solution for electric vehicle drivers without access to off-street parking.

Further projects to receive funding include:

A renovation project, installing chargepoints in car parks to allow for mass charging at night
A project leveraging existing Virgin Media physical and online infrastructure to deliver cost-effective and widespread charging, using high speed internet connections to better share information online on charging progress and parking spaces
A storage and advanced electronics project that will deliver semi-rapid charging using a low power grid connection minimising the need for costly substation upgrades.

Char.gy, an electric charging company, has been awarded over £2.3m and will use the funding to deploy wireless charging technology on residential streets without the need for trailing cables and additional infrastructure.

Initial three-month feasibility studies have been completed and successful projects are moving onto the next stage of development.

Richard Stobart, CEO of Char.gy, said: “Our consortium is delighted to be funded by Innovate UK to demonstrate induction charging on residential streets in Milton Keynes, the London Borough of Redbridge and Buckinghamshire County. Working in collaboration with the Open University and The University of Warwick’s WMG we are excited to show that our ability to retrofit to existing electric vehicles and enable several parking bays per lamp column without the need for cables will accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles.”

The Government released its Road to Zero strategy last year which sets out new measures to clean up road transport and lead the world in developing, manufacturing and using zero emission road vehicles.