Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021

Earl Cathcart Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Grand Committee

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

My Lords, these draft regulations will be made under the powers provided by the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018. They will mandate that most new private electric vehicle charge points sold in Great Britain be capable of smart charging and meet minimum device-level requirements. They will play an important role in helping us meet our transport decarbonisation targets.

As announced by the Prime Minister as part of the world-leading 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, the Government are going further and faster to decarbonise transport by phasing out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, and, from 2035, all new cars and vans must be 100% zero emission at the tailpipe. Cars and vans represent one-fifth of UK domestic carbon dioxide emissions and accounted for 71% of domestic UK transport emissions in 2019. Ending the sale of new conventional petrol and diesel cars and vans is a key part of the answer to our long- term transport air quality and greenhouse gas emissions.

Electric vehicles present not only a huge opportunity to decarbonise transport but an important opportunity for consumers to contribute to the efficient management of electricity and to share the benefits of doing so. Smart charging will enable this. It enables consumers to shift their electric vehicle charging to times when electricity is cheaper and demand is low. It is a win-win, both reducing the need for costly network reinforcement and saving consumers money on their energy bills.

These regulations are essential to drive the uptake of this important technology and to enable the transition to electric vehicles while minimising cost to consumers. This instrument could deliver up to £1.1 billion of savings to the power system by 2050. Through it, the Government will deliver four key objectives for smart charging policy by driving consumer uptake, delivering consumer protections, helping ensure the stability of the electricity grid and supporting innovation.

The key provisions in the instrument are as follows. First, these regulations mandate that most domestic and workplace charge points sold in Great Britain will have the capability to smart charge, so that consumers can benefit from the savings this offers. Many home charge points already have smart functionality, so this instrument will work with the grain of the market and consumer behaviour to drive significant uptake of this technology and reduce the cost of the electric vehicle transition.

It is important to note that the instrument maintains consumer choice. It mandates that charge points must have the functionality to support smart charging, but consumers will still be in control of when they charge. They will continue to be able to choose the energy tariff that suits their needs and decide whether to subscribe to smart charging services. Some consumers may not engage with smart charging so, to encourage them to charge at times of low electricity demand, the instrument ensures that charge points are preset not to charge at peak times. However, and importantly, the instrument mandates that consumers must be informed and asked to confirm this setting during first use, and they must be able to edit it at any point in the future.

Secondly, these regulations establish new cybersecurity and grid protection requirements. The instrument embeds new and more robust cyber hygiene standards into smart charge points to help mitigate the risk that charge points are hacked and controlled to the detriment of individual consumers and the electricity system. It also requires a randomised delay function to prevent the synchronised switching on or off of large numbers of charge points—for example, in response to a drop in electricity prices. This will help ensure that smart charge points support the integration of electric vehicles into the electricity system and do not destabilise it.

Thirdly, the regulations set new requirements on how charge points monitor and record electricity consumption. This will help consumers to engage with their energy bills and usage, and ensure that a charge point is capable of supporting smart services. Many requirements, such as cybersecurity, electricity monitoring and the randomised delay function, align with standards developed with industry, mainly the British Standard for energy smart appliances, PAS 1878.

Finally, we are mandating that, in the event that a consumer switches their electricity supplier, their charge point must retain its smart functionality. This will ensure that consumers are not locked into a specific electricity supplier by their choice of charge point.

Noble Lords will note that the Government take an outcome-focused approach throughout the instrument and do not prescribe specific technical implementations. This approach will support ongoing innovation within the charge point market and help to maintain our position as world leaders in smart technology.

These regulations are essential to ensuring the successful uptake of smart charging technology to support the electricity grid and consumers in the transition to electric vehicles. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

[Earl Cathcart (Con)]

My Lords, I support these regulations. As my noble friend the Minister explained, they apply to charge points intended for use by vans and cars in a domestic or workplace setting. When will we get charge points at our workplace setting, the Palace of Westminster? It would be good for us to lead by example. I looked at electric cars a few months ago but, when fully charged, it might have got me here—just—but not home again, so I had to buy a hybrid car, which was a pity.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her explanation. This SI certainly concentrates on one part of the EV charging market—the issue of smart charging and its interface with grid capacity—but there are considerable questions about the picture as a whole. I shall raise the issues of vans and of long journeys.

First, why does the SI exclude rapid charging points? They would be a reasonable investment for companies with small fleets of vans, for example, and those that come in at various times of the day needing to recharge. As the noble Earl pointed out, there is not a very long range on all the vehicles concerned. Recharging during the day in a half-hour window is therefore essential for many companies. I have sat in a queue at a motorway services where a van has used a rapid charging point. That was obviously essential to that person’s working day; he was using a van because that was his business—it was clearly a small company.

There is a lot of detail in this instrument on how exactly the provisions will operate. I was pleased to hear the noble Baroness talk about being able to change the settings and so on. I would like her assurance that it will be simple to change the settings, because it does not take too much thought to imagine a household where, for example, a district nurse works a day shift one weekend and a nightshift the next, so obviously in one week she will charge at night and the next she will charge during the day—and, on some of those shifts, she cannot pay attention to the cheapest rate for electricity.

I also want reassurance about the circumstances in which people find themselves. I have an electric vehicle, as the noble Baroness knows. I have solar panels. I have virtually no mobile phone signal in my house and very poor wi-fi on occasions—although they were digging up the road this week, so I have hope for an improvement there. My point is that we charge during the day, when the sun is out—or is at least up in the sky behind the clouds. It is easy for people to adjust in the light of their personal circumstances.