Connected Kerb, a British infrastructure company that charges public charging devices on the streets of Britian has announced plans to install over 190,000. These chargers will be installed in Britian between 2030 and 2025.
Electric vehicles are expected to be in high demand due to a ban of diesel and petrol cars being sold by the year’s end.
The London-based business has around 1,000 public chargers in service, with contracts signed for 10,000 more and it is looking for around £1.9billion in investment.
Chris Pateman Jones, Chief Executive of the company, stated that it would need to have agreements for an additional 35,000 chargers before the end of the quarter 2022.
Massive boost for EV charger infrastructure: Connected Kerb in Britain today announced plans for 190,000 public electric car charging points by 2030
Plans have been called ‘one among the most ambitious rollouts for public EV chargers ever seen in Britain’. The infrastructure will be able to’support many millions of drivers without having to park on the streets’.
Connected Kerb relies on long-term contracts that last 15-25 years. These are financed by infrastructure bank groups and Equitix, an infrastructure investor.
Tax-payer funding is also available to the company for public chargers residentially.
75 percent of the charge for installing chargers through the On-Street Residential Charging Scheme, (ORCS) will be paid by Government’s Office for Zero Emission Vehicles.
Recent stats, up to July 2021 show that ORCS funded 1,459 public-charging devices since 2017 when the scheme was launched. There will be an additional 3,200 charging points in the near future.
Connected Kerb will finance the remaining 25%, providing a “zero cost installation opportunity” for local councils.
DevicePilot’s investigation found that nearly half the councils it interviewed had not invested in localised public charging infrastructures for electric vehicles in the past 12 months.
Pateman Jones said that ‘Knowing that you can reach virtually any place at any time in any vehicle, and charge your battery cheaply without any inconvenience, is what we need to make an EV society a reality.
‘Our rollout of public chargers – one of the most ambitious the UK has ever seen – encapsulates that future, helping individuals and businesses to confidently make the switch to electric, reducing their carbon footprint and cutting air pollution.
‘Targets are important – for an industry so critical to the decarbonisation of transport, we need goals to work towards and objectives to which we are all accountable. They must however be implemented.
Over the course of next year, Connected Kerb intends to install 10,000 on-street charging points in West Sussex. It’s the UK’s largest-ever deployment.
Today, thousands more chargers were also revealed as part tenders with local councils, including Coventry (3000 chargers), Cambridge (360), and Plymouth (1010) and, recently, Milton Keynes (2250), Warrington (30), Medway 30), and Glasgow City Council (East Lothian Council), Shropshire County Council, and Hackney Council as part the Agile Streets trial (1100).
Today the British company confirmed the installation of 10,000 charging stations on West Sussex’s streets over the next 12 months. It is the largest deployment ever made by any UK authority.
Expected to sign deals for the implementation of 30,000 more devices elsewhere in the UK next year. In the future, agreements will also be in place for the fitting of 190,000.
Kent County Council is one of them. Today, it also announced that Connected Kerb has been chosen to provide at least 600 charging stations by 2023.
Installations are expected to begin by 2021. Many chargers will be installed in rural and parish areas in Kent. This infrastructure is vital for communities that have been left behind in the EV transition.
Connected Kerb allows drivers of electric vehicles to find available devices, monitor charging status and track vehicle’s progress while they are plugged into the grid.
Every device is equipped with a QR code that allows users to quickly access the network and make contactless payments.
This app lets you monitor your vehicle’s charging status and the price.
Today, thousands more chargers were also revealed as part tenders with local councils, including Coventry (3000 chargers), Cambridge (360), and Plymouth (1000), as well as Milton Keynes (2250), Warrington (30), Medway (30), as well as Glasgow City Council (East Lothian Council), Shropshire County Council (and Hackney Council) as part the Agile Streets trial (1100).
To reduce street clutter, Connected Kerb devices have their technology hidden under the street. This allows them to provide smaller devices than large industrial boxes.
Individual charge points above the ground can then be connected, meaning more can be added to a localised network if and when needed in relation to demand.
Drivers will have the ability to access consistent tariffs from all network sites via a mobile app using contactless payments.
The app can also be used by EV drivers for finding available devices as well as keeping track of the vehicle’s charging status while it’s plugged into.
The current charge rate is between 7kW to 22kW depending on the type of above-ground charge unit it offers.
Plans have been called ‘one among the most ambitious rollouts for public EV chargers ever seen in Britain’. The infrastructure will be able to’support the tens or millions of drivers without having off-street parking.
The government estimates that Britain will have around 400k EV charging points before the end. Connected Kerb however believes there is more.
Trudy, the Transport Minister for Australia said that Monday’s Connected Kerb announcement was a significant step in decarbonising transport and ensuring equal access across all areas of the country.
‘It’s great to see Connected Kerb and local authorities working together as the Government commits £2.5billion towards electric vehicle grants and the development of EV infrastructure in our towns and cities.’
Britain pledged that it would ban new petrol and diesel cars starting in 2030, but there have been repeated concerns about charging infrastructure.
Chris Pateman Jones believes it should make deals to purchase an additional 35,000 chargers before the end of the quarter 2022
Although the Government believes that there will be approximately 400,000 charging stations for electric vehicles by this point, Pateman Jones from Connected Kerb says there is a much greater demand.
According to the European Automobile Makers’ Association or ACEA the UK market for fully-electric vehicles soared by 88% over the prior year.
EV sales are on the rise, but a slow pace in installing charging infrastructure is a problem.
European and US cities that plan to eliminate combustion engines in the coming 15 years will first have to address the problem of millions of people who park on streets.
Pateman Jones said that the real obstacle to buying an EV was the inability to charge it and lack of reliability.
Shell stated earlier in the year it was expanding its network for EV charging points throughout Britain. The company also plans to place 50,000 charging posts on streets by 2025 using its Ubitricity on-street charger unit.
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