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Are social landlords responding to the electric vehicle challenge?

The electric car revolution is under way. But with charging the new vehicles an infrastructure challenge, how are housing providers adapting? Barbara Buchanan finds out. Pictures by Getty

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Electric vehicles are on their way, but how are #ukhousing providers gearing up?

Are friends electric? Housing associations are getting ready for the EV challenge #ukhousing

Most new cars in the UK will be electric by 2030, and home charging is a challenge. How are #ukhousing providers adapting?

Electric cars have been catapulted into the fast lane in recent times, and with local and national planners alike increasingly requiring new developments to include charging infrastructure, housing providers are at the forefront of the revolution.

Sadiq Khan’s draft new London Plan, for example, is calling for 20% of car parking spaces in new build developments to have ready-to-use chargers. The remaining 80% must be ready for them to be installed at a later date.

Nationally, the government is consulting about changing building regulations to ensure that all new homes can power electric vehicles.

Regional planning authorities are also getting in on the act. Swindon, which is heavily reliant on wind energy and committed to future green-friendly development, has just adopted planning rules under which all new detached homes must have a wallbox charger to regulate charging time and speed on the network. New flat developments with parking must have 30% of spaces with a charger and a further 30% with the cabling infrastructure.

“We want to future proof new developments,” explains Gary Sumner, cabinet minister for strategic planning at Swindon Borough Council. “We need to have the infrastructure in place as it’s difficult to retrofit developments.”

Elsewhere, Leeds City Council will from this month require all new homes to have one charging point per parking space.

In this new environment, how are housing associations and other developers adapting their plans for new schemes?


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One of the challenges for developers will be the extra costs of making new housing schemes compliant and to ensure there is sufficient electricity available.

It is estimated the amount of electricity to run an electric car is about the same as that needed to power a house, so future schemes with charge points will need more network capacity. A2Dominion, which owns and manages 38,000 properties across London and the South East, argues this could mean developers shelling out more in build costs.

Wall-mounted charging points typically cost £500, while floor-mounted dual output chargers sell for £1,600. It is a significant cost in addition to the potential extra demand on the electricity grid.

“Many people would be happy to use an electric car but can’t do so because the opportunities to charge are not available”

Stephen Teagle, chief executive of partners and regeneration, Galliford Try

As Zano Jong Loy, project development manager at A2Dominion, tells Inside Housing: “For a 100-unit scheme, developers would generally need to either install a new electric substation or upgrade an existing one anyway.”

The typical extra cost for a substation serving 100 new homes is usually between £100,000 to £150,000, depending on the size of the homes.

“If there was an increased capacity, where 20 of the 50 car parking spaces could charge vehicles, then this would add to the overall load and would increase the cost of the substation,” adds Mr Jong Loy.

He warns that adding charging points after construction could potentially mean having to replace the substation completely.

Developer Galliford Try believes that planning authorities are becoming increasingly concerned about climate change. Ensuring new build developments can support electric car charging is part of a drive to be greener.

Stephen Teagle, chief executive of partnerships and regeneration at Galliford Try, who drives a Tesla Model 3 electric car, welcomes the move as part of the responsible development agenda.

“Without doubt there’s been a sea change in the past three months,” he says. “Increasingly, local authorities, public landowners and commissioners are asking for planning consent to address future proofing with regards to environmental responsibility.”

Mr Teagle also agrees that capacity will be one of the issues he and his peers need to address: “When you are planning developments and you target a percentage of electric charger use, you need to ensure you have the capacity to deal with the demand.”

He adds that councils and London boroughs have become increasingly prescriptive about charging requirements.

“Local authorities and [the] industry need to become more familiar with technical requirements of providing adequate charging facilities. It’s important they are the right ones and can be used effectively,” he says.

He also says that “clarity of requirements” from local authorities is important for assessing costs and the viability of a scheme.

Places for People, which manages nearly 200,000 homes in the UK, says the challenge for developers is planning an environmental sustainability strategy in this changing landscape.

Julie Alexander, its technical and innovation director, says: “There’s a lot of different options available to developers. Some are modelled on particular user behaviour. Will people want to charge at home, on the street or en route? This is not properly understood yet.”

Nissan Leaf electric cars, charging in a car park in Morpeth, Northumberland

She adds that there are a whole raft of logistical issues, particularly when it comes to installing infrastructure for existing developments. These include whether electric charging posts or underground connectivity is better and whether walkways might be blocked by charging points.

“As a sector, we all need to do our due diligence on what suppliers are offering. We might adopt certain policies for different reasons. The market is growing and changing,” she says.

The need for developments to be electric car-friendly is also being driven by improvement to the cars themselves.

Manufacturers such as Jaguar and Tesla are developing new models with a one-charge range of at least 160 miles. Anjan Kumar, research director at automotive research group Frost & Sullivan, says within the next few years this should increase to at least 200 miles.

Both Volkswagen and Renault have followed in the footsteps of the Nissan ‘Leaf’ with models where surplus car battery energy can be used in the home to power appliances.

Nissan is currently collaborating with the government to look at how electric vehicles can return energy to the power grid, lowering costs for motorists. Nissan’s Leaf model can already transfer excess electricity back to the home to power appliances.

Ms Alexander says that Places for People plans to build its business model around charging infrastructure and stresses that “the market has not settled yet”.

She points to dynamic tariffs with charges to the user varying according to the time of day. The government announced recently it will only offer grants to people who install ‘smart’ electric charge points. These are ones that can be accessed remotely and enable consumers to cut costs and reduce demand on the grid by off-peak charging.

“Will people want to charge at home, on the street or en route? This is not properly understood yet”

Julie Alexander, technical and innovation director, Places for People

Demand for electric cars among residents of affordable homes is currently low. But as they become cheaper to buy and the infrastructure improves, this could change.

Since May, 700 new public charge points have been installed, bringing the total to 17,000, of which 1,700 are rapid. The government has legislated for net zero-carbon emissions by 2050, with all new cars in the UK set to be zero emission by 2040. Alongside this, an increasing number of local authorities are making their towns and cities ‘clean air zones’. In London, the Ultra Low Emission Zone came into effect in April.

This means that diesel cars and vans built before 2015 and 2016, as well as most pre-2006 petrol cars, will have to pay £12.50 to enter the city on top of the congestion charge.

Birmingham and Leeds will be clean air zones by January 2020, where vehicles which fail the emission tests will be charged to enter the centre. As the market matures, it is estimated there will be more second-hand electric cars available at lower prices, too.

Frost & Sullivan has forecast there will be 500 new electric models – 10 times the number for sale at the moment – within the next five years. These will range from run-around city cars to larger four-wheel drive SUVs. Mr Kumar adds that in the next five years electric cars will cost just 10% of the amount spent on running a petrol-fuelled car.

Mr Jong Loy agrees, adding that the future advantages of an electric car or scooter will become more apparent.

“The benefits to the end user are starting to grow,” he explains. “If I can charge my car in five to six hours for free as opposed to paying £50 or £60 for a full tank, plus there’s no road tax nor congestion or emission charge, then running-wise it’s a lot more efficient.”

Mr Teagle says the ideal, blue-sky development would use smaller batteries, the size of a paperback book. “These could simply be purchased, charged and plugged in, powering home appliances and one day, perhaps, even cars. If users ran out, they could simply buy another one.

“This is where we should be going but we are not there yet. At the moment, we have to rely on access to sufficiently fast charging points. Many people in our cities would be happy to use an electric car but can’t do so because the opportunities to charge are not available.”

For that to change, the developers of housing must step up.

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