Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021

Considered in Grand Committee

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021.

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.

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.

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.

Paragraph 7.12 in the Explanatory Memorandum refers to cybersecurity, which clearly worries the Government, although I have not thought too much about it myself in this context, so I should be grateful for some more detail there. Paragraph 7.14 refers to Regulation 5, which invests the Secretary of State with enforcement powers and investigatory powers, including powers of entry and inspection. I welcome clarification. Is this only for companies selling and installing charging points, or is it something to which companies that have installed charging points may find themselves subject? It occurs to me that the technology of charging points is probably beyond many who have them installed, and therefore one could find oneself with a charging point that is not acting as it should without being at all aware of it. I am concerned about that.

Fundamental to all of this is the issue of grid capacity. National Grid came up some years ago with the figure of aiming that one should never be more than 25 miles from a charge point. Is that still its aim, because, if so, it is woefully inadequate? I invite your Lordships to substitute in your mind the idea that we should never be more than 25 miles from a fuel station for you to see that it is not sensible in anything other than, perhaps, the Highlands of Scotland. Clearly, we need far more charge points than that. That is the background to the current set of regulations.

The SI excludes public charging, as well as rapid charging. Because of the crossover between private households, small businesses and the need for access to public charging, I am interested in why they are excluded. The importance of having adequate numbers of specific charge points for commercial vans is something that the Government need to look at. Unless we enlist the positive support and co-operation of the commercial sector, both large and small, none of this will work as intended.

Finally, I turn to the next steps. We need something equally detailed for all the rest of the charge points which have been excluded from the SI. There are key issues, especially for people on long-distance routes. Are the Government convinced that the grid capacity at our motorway service stations is adequate to have banks of charging points? Motorway service stations are often in rural or semirural areas, where grid capacity is low.

The issue of disabled access has not been raised. The current design of charging points in public places is absolutely woeful for people with disabilities, either physical ones in terms of movement or visual disability.

When can we expect there to be more electric charge points? The latest figures from the SMMT show that just one EV charging point is being installed for every 52 new EVs registered. That is completely inadequate and there will not be the expansion of the sector we need unless that improves.

London has as many charging points as the whole of the rest of the UK. This really requires a strong steer from the Government if we are to get over the psychological problem that the noble Lord exemplified perfectly just before I spoke. We find where our local charge points are and very quickly work out how to use them. We work how our own vehicles operate and how best to maximise the range. We manage all that, but you talk to any EV owner and the first thing they mention is the range for long journeys. Until we can be comfortable with that, we are not going to encourage people to go for EVs in the large numbers that we need to.

As background, the impact assessment states in paragraph 1 that:

“In 2019, road transport accounted for 24% of all UK”

greenhouse gas

“emissions with cars and light commercial vehicles … accounting for 79% of this total,”

and that greenhouse gas

“emissions from transport have remained largely unchanged since 1990.”

The impact assessment then says in paragraph 1, as it does on a number of occasions elsewhere, “Error! Bookmark not defined” in bold letters. I would just like to ask what that means in paragraph 1 of the impact assessment I have and, indeed, in other parts of it. I take it that is an error but I would like to check what it means. Does it mean anything I need to be aware of or is it just a mistake?

With the ending of the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the UK scheduled for 2030, the Department for Transport regards the transition to electric vehicles as crucial to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with the electricity system having to be able to meet the increased demand that that will generate. Can the Minister say what the Government estimate the additional greenhouse emissions will be that will be generated by the increased demand for electricity arising from the transition to electric vehicles? This will have to be set against the reduction in such emissions arising from the phasing out of petrol and diesel vehicles?

As has already been said—and indeed is in the Explanatory Memorandum—most electric vehicles are expected to be charged at home, but the Department for Transport expects that without smart charging, this is most likely to happen during electricity system peak times when people arrive home from work. This would require, the EM says, “significant … additional investment” in the electricity networks and electricity generation capacity. Smart charging is intended to address this issue. Can the Government say in their response what the saving will be in these additional investment costs if there is a successful move to smart charging and what percentage of investment each year in electricity networks and electricity generation capacity that savings figure in additional investment represents?

With smart motorways and now smart charging, it is clear the Department for Transport has taken a fancy to the use of the word “smart”, but I would have to say that it did not figure greatly in the recent announcement on the backtracking on the northern powerhouse rail and eastern leg of HS2 commitments. As well as introducing a requirement for all domestic and workplace charging points to include smart functionality or charging, the regulations set out certain standards and requirements that smart charging points must meet. They also require a statement of compliance to go with every smart charging point sold, with penalties for selling a non-compliant charging point.

Paragraph 10 of the EM, on consultation, also says:

“The majority of respondents supported the Government’s overall aims and objectives for EV smart charging”.

Of course, it is not clear what “the majority of respondents” means. What did the minority—it could be up to 49%, by the way—say did not constitute support for “the Government’s overall aims and objectives”, bearing in mind that paragraph 10 says: