HGVs: Charging and Refuelling

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Monday 22nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Randerson]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage and develop a network of public charging and refuelling sites for zero-emission HGVs, and what policies are they adopting to encourage and facilitate the development of charging and refuelling infrastructure at commercial HGV depots.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government recognise that charging and refuelling sites required to support zero-emission HGV uptake will need to increase before 2040. Last year’s future of freight plan committed to convening industry stakeholders to develop a plan for rollout, which is happening through our Freight Energy Forum. Extensive stakeholder engagement will begin later this year.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, it is accepted that a very large number of electric vehicle charging points, particularly ultra-fast ones, will be required in the near future, and that those will mainly be needed in depots. However, the National Grid is giving applicants for extra grid capacity completion dates and access dates that are well into the 2030s. What are the Government doing to ensure there is sufficiently large grid capacity throughout the UK to enable this logistics revolution to proceed apace?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government are taking a two-phased approach to this, and those phases are happening concurrently. The first is that we need to discuss with industry stakeholders exactly how they feel the strategy for the rollout of zero-emission vehicles will go, particularly at the heavy end. That is why we will publish the zero-emission HGV infrastructure strategy later this year, once we have been able to discuss it with those stakeholders. The Government are confident that the grid can cope with the increased demand, and the next step is to ensure that depots can connect to it. We are working with the DNOs to find the most cost-effective solution to that.