Project overview
Electric vehicles are crucial to the decarbonisation of our transport system. However, around 30% of Oxfordshire residents lack access to private off-street parking and therefore cannot install standard home chargers. Without these, many lack the confidence and ability to switch to driving an electric car.
While on-street chargers were one option, we identified a better solution. Working with Oxfordshire district councils and Oxfordshire County Council, we uncovered that many council-owned and controlled car parks are located where residents lack private parking. Through winning a £3.6 million grant from Innovate UK as part of a consortium, we turned these car parks into 250 EV charging hubs across the county.
Objectives
Our goal at the start of the project was to explore a new blueprint for future public EV charging facilities. Working with Zeta Specialist Lighting, Oxfordshire County Council won £120k funding from Innovate UK to complete an initial feasibility study. This explored whether EV charging hubs in council car parks could provide a viable and attractive solution for residents lacking off-street parking. The results suggested that many would happily charge an EV there overnight, providing it was just a short walk home.
Using this insight as a springboard, we entered into a consortium that won a further £3.6 million grant from Innovate UK. This would be used to deliver a pilot project installing the first public EV hubs across the county. Zeta Specialist Lighting led the project, making and installing the chargers. Other partners included software innovators Urban Integrated UK, University of Oxford and Oxfordshire County Council.
The solution
Our team designed a solution allowing a county-wide voluntary pilot to run without funding or procurement. Funding dedicated electric vehicle (EV) chargers is a significant barrier to car clubs using EVs. However, the spare capacity at public EV chargers installed in the Park and Charge Oxfordshire project provided the perfect opportunity for car clubs to trial EVs without additional cost.
We invited all the Oxfordshire EV car club operators likely to be interested in participating in the twelve-month pilot. We offered a dedicated EV charging bay for a year to the three commercial car club partners who agreed to participate. A further local start-up joined the project at a later date. These car club partners agreed to take part at their own cost.
All partners—including the five district councils and two EV ChargePoint operators hosting the car clubs—signed a simple memorandum of understanding that set out roles, responsibilities, and commitments within the pilot. This made the administration simple to manage and the project agile in its response and delivery.
Achievements
By the end of 2022, the team had delivered 250 EV charging sockets in hubs in 20 council car parks across the county. Feedback about the hubs’ locations and the user experience of the EV chargers has been emphatic. Utilisation across the sites continues to grow as more residents feel confident about switching to electric vehicles.
The successful approach of installing EV chargers in council car parks in residential areas has greatly informed plans for Oxfordshire County Council’s major infrastructure rollout using the Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) grant from central government. The Oxfordshire LEVI programme intends to deliver at least 65 more EV charging hubs in council-owned car parks between 2025 and 2027.
“I have had the pleasure of working with Innovate Oxfordshire now for over 5 years and I have to say it is so refreshing to meet with a team of dedicated professionals that really understand the commercial pressures that business face. It is unusual for the public facing parts of a local authority to respond both positively and engaging but also with a sense of urgency that businesses need.”
Phil Shadbolt OBE, CEO of EZ-Charge and Zeta Specialist Lighting