EV INFRASTRUCTURE
www.electrichybridvehicletechnology.com // January 2020 // 73
POP-UP STREET CHARGING
Although charging at home or at work are
solutions, they are not always possible. In
the UK, for example, 43% of households
have no off-street parking to enable
charging. A quarter of all drivers (50% in
large cities) park on-street at night, so that
is eight million drivers who will be looking
for a convenient charging solution. In
Europe, an even higher proportion of drivers
live in apartments and park on-street, and
there are 109 million on-street parking
spaces across Europe.
As an answer, Startup Urban Electric has
developed the UEone pop-up charging
hub, an app-operated retractable
charging solution. Designed
primarily for residential
streets and for public parking
and charging bays, the hubs
will typically be deployed
as six chargers at a time in
a row on one side of
the street.
They offer convenience
and dependability (certainty
of availability of a charge
point, compared to say lamp
post chargers which are isolated
charge points). Each pop-up
charge point delivers 7kW, more
than sufficient to fully charge any electric
vehicle overnight, and is OCPP, so can be
connected to any charging network.
The reason they are retractable is so
that when not in use during the day, they
do not cause street clutter or obstruct
the pavement, something that both local
authorities and residents are insistent upon.
Not only that, by shifting EV charging to the
main off-peak period – overnight – we are
helping to manage the grid, and with smart
charging, no grid upgrades will be required,
the carbon content of electricity is lowest
at night and so is the price. It is in many
ways the ideal solution and a win-win for
everyone concerned. The company recently
installed a prototype pop-up charging
hub in Oxford, and with a further 18
demonstrator hubs agreed for installation in
Dundee and Plymouth in 2020.
“Charging infrastructure is perceived
as being the primary barrier to
EV adoption,” says Keith
Johnston, cofounder
of Urban Electric.
“However, the
price/lease price of EVs also has to come
down to price parity with traditional ICE
cars, or thereabouts, before we hit a tipping
point. This is predicted to happen within
the next three to five years, starting with
the more expensive cars and tricking down
quickly after that.
“The range of EVs probably has to
increase to around 250-300 miles as well
in order to go mainstream. We already have
electric cars that can do this, and demand
already outstrips supply for these models.
We will see a surge in the number of rapid
charging hubs in the coming years, and
so the question of charging infrastructure
is to all intents and purposes about to be
solved. Now it is up to the manufacturers
to accelerate the introduction of their full
electric vehicles.”
change and EVs become ubiquitous, redundant
fuel storage will be replaced with electric.
“The larger convenience-ready forecourts
with retail and café off erings are already
perfectly suited to EV charging and en-route
high-power charging, as are motorway service
stations,” Pugh adds. “It’s worth noting,
however, that there are about 40 million
vehicles on UK roads and we have some 9,000
petrol stations handling that volume, and that
EV charging won’t take place only on
forecourts. Home and workplace charging is
ideal for daily work commuters and inner-city,
low-mileage round trips. I expect this will
remain the crown holder for the largest
percentage of low power through-the-day/
night charging. It makes sense. You plug in and
forget until you have to drive again.”
Could a massive rise in EVs on the roads of
Europe put an unbearable strain on the grid?
Frank Muehlon, head of global business for EV
Charging Infrastructure at ABB is sanguine:
“If we were to reach a 100% electrifi ed car fl eet,
we could expect an increase in total electricity
“It is our view that the next generation of EVs
will use DC charging technology. Indeed, it is
DC that is best suited to delivering faster rates
of charging and we’re seeing this with the
next generation of vehicles coming to market”
Adrian Keen, CEO, InstaVolt
demand of up to 10-20% depending on the
country and the level of industrialization. Yet,
in the short term over the next fi ve years, given
the current rates of e-mobility adoption, we
should see little impact on the grid, this is even
taking into consideration countries such
as Norway, where over 50% of new cars are
electric vehicles.”
Currently, overall predictions signal that
electricity demand will grow 3,000 TWh by
2040 as a result of electric vehicles. This would
see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR)
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