Smart charging is mainly available to those who can plug in their electric vehicles (EVs) on their driveway at home. This gives these EV drivers the benefit of accessing lower tariffs at times when demand for electricity is lower. To make sure the move to EVs is equal for everyone, it’s essential that everybody can access these lower tariffs.
As a result of the Agile Streets project, EV users who don’t have access to home charging points will get the opportunity to make use of off-peak tariffs through public smart charging on the street.
The Agile Streets project, which was funded by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), demonstrated the use of the smart metering system and a new business model to manage EV charging.
In the delivery of the Agile Streets project, Energy Saving Trust worked with a consortium of partners including Samsung, Connected Kerb, Octopus Energy, SMETS Design Limited and PNDC. Our role was to support local authority recruitment; stakeholder coordination; marketing and publicity; evaluation and dissemination; end user acceptance support; and digital surveys.
Moving forward, the smart charging points used in the Agile Streets project will be handed over to the local authorities in the regions that took part. We see this as a step towards our mission to address the climate emergency and towards making sure that everyone has fair access to electric vehicle charging points and, subsequently, to low carbon travel.
We plan to continue working on smart charging and will support local authorities to adopt smart charging technology across their networks.
You can find more information on the Agile Streets project and the key findings by downloading the report below.