Winchester City Council, EV charge point

Winchester City Council’s Mixed Funding Model

Winchester City Council sits right in the heart of the Hampshire led Central Southern Regional Framework for Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure. The council declared a climate emergency in June 2019; committing to become a carbon-neutral council by 2024 with the wider district to become carbon neutral by 2030. As the highest source of council carbon emissions, transport was a priority for the council to address. As the local authority with the highest number of plug-in cars and vans registered within Hampshire at the time, it was clear that installing electric vehicle charging infrastructure was imperative to mitigating harmful emissions from local transport and improving air quality. Councillor Jackie Porter says As more drivers invest in electric cars, we want residents and visitors to be sure that their visits to our city, larger villages, and market towns include the chance to recharge their electric car. We hope that by installing electric vehicle charge points it will boost tourism too as the summer arrives”.

 

Following some initial research from Horizon Power & Energy, Winchester City Council accessed the Central Southern Regional Framework and instigated a feasibility study from Joju, the suppliers to this framework, to investigate the opportunity of installing electric vehicle charge points.

Funding Winchester City Council’s EV Charge points

The feasibility study initially examined 23 public car parks. Through this process full pricing and site designs were put together for the council to then decide which sites to move forward with in the first phase of installations. As well as pricing and site design, the council were also able to access several unique funding solutions. Through the Central Southern Regional Framework, several funding options are available

  • Joju can offer supplier funding for the entire cost of charge point installation (fully funded),
  • a co-investment model with the council whereby the council contributes a certain percentage of the installation costs and Joju contributes the rest
  • A fully council funded model whereby the council funds the entire cost of the installation. Through the fully funded and co-investment model, the ongoing maintenance and operational costs of the charge points are covered by Joju.

 

The council decided that it would utilise all three models of funding. Using the fully funded model for a rapid charge point, dedicated for electric taxis. The co-investment model was used for the majority of the sites, and the council decided to fully fund one site in Denmead due to requests from several local constituents. Every charge point installed through the fully supplier funded model and the co-investment model is provided with clean, renewable electricity.

 

The feasibility findings were published in a cabinet report and the council allocated £120,000 of council money for the portfolio, with Joju and their partner Gronn Kontakt providing the remainder of the funding.

Installing EV charge points

Overall, 16 sites were chosen for Phase One with 33 charge points to be installed in early 2021. The car parks are located across the district in Alresford, Bishops Waltham, Denmead, Harestock, Wickham and Winchester City Centre. 32 of the charge points provide a charge rate of up to 22kW, depending on what electric vehicle you drive. One 50kW rapid charge point was also installed at Worthy Lane Coach Park car park, near Winchester Station, which is for both public use and the emerging electric vehicle taxi trade in the local area. All 33 charge points can be accessed through the Gronn Kontakt charging portal and app.

This scheme, alongside the Hampshire County Council on-street rollout of charge points in Winchester, brings the city and the surrounding areas up to speed with the accelerating demand for electric vehicle charging.

As David Ingram, Project Lead says, “Winchester City Council’s Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy was adopted as part of its Clean Air Strategy, and supports aspirations toward a low carbon economy by encouraging the uptake of low emission vehicles. In assisting the City Council, Joju Solar provided a comprehensive and professional partnership by producing feasibility studies, giving clear presentations to decision makers, simplifying an otherwise complex set of considerations and ultimately fully project managing the installation of the network”. 

Plans for more charge points in Winchester

As Winchester continues the path to carbon neutrality, we expect to see the provision of electric vehicle charging infrastructure increase over the years. The council already have exciting projects in the pipeline which will look to expand their network of charging. Through the Central Southern Regional Framework, the notion of a universal charging network within the area is becoming more of a reality, and Winchester can be instrumental in leading the charge.

University of Southampton, EV charge point, Avenue Campus

The University of Southampton EV Charging Pilot

Overall, the city of Southampton has been investing heavily in carbon reduction and air quality improvement through their transport strategy. Throughout the city, we have seen a large increase in fast and rapid electric vehicle (EV) charge points (CP) becoming available to the public.

Sustainability in the University

The University of Southampton has also followed this trajectory with their 2015-2020 travel plan. As part of this plan, the University is promoting more sustainable means of transport. The University track the number of electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) through their parking permit database. An increase in the amount of EVs and PHEVs on record indicated a demand for charging services.  This led them to launch a pilot project whereby they installed ten electric vehicle charge points at four locations across their campuses.

The Pilot

Two years ago, it was made more expensive for a member of staff or visitor to purchase a permit with a vehicle with higher emissions (petrol or diesel). This was pursuant with making the permits cheaper for EV or PHEV owners. As the number of PHEV and EV owners increased, the University decided to launch a pilot to facilitate the need for charging these vehicles on site. The University decided to fully fund the charge points and procured them through the Central Southern Regional (CSR) Framework. Adam Tewksbury, Associate Director for Environment & Sustainability, had the following to say “[…] The CSR Framework has been really helpful because we are able to say these are the same charge points that you will see locally, which alleviates the concerns about different styles, types of charging points and operating systems, people who are thinking about getting an EV might have. The consistency helps the messaging.”

Multiple Pricing Tariffs

The pilot project saw ten electric vehicle charge points installed at four campus car parks. Four charge points were installed at their main visitor car park at Highfield campus. Two charge points per campus were also installed at Bolderwood, Avenue and Winchester. The charge points are available to all staff and visitors who have a permit to access the car parks. As well as this, the University has seven electric fleet vehicles which make up around one-quarter of all of the vehicles in the Estates Department. These fleet vehicles are able to access all of the charge points installed.

The University has applied differential pricing according to the different user types.  University of Southampton fleet vehicles aren’t charged for electricity usage on the charge points, whereas staff and visitors are charged at a rate of £0.20 per kWh. The fleet vehicles are able to do this through an approved fob which is set to free charging via the New Motion back-office system.

The charge points are being used

The University wanted to monitor the usage of the charge points over the course of a year to help inform their future sustainability strategy planning. This would also contribute to the need for future installations throughout the University. Straight away, the charge points were being used.  “Two EVs were charging after 24 hours of installing them which shows the latent demand was there,” said Adam. Two newsletters were released at six and 12 months, which stated how much the charge points had been used and how many people had accessed them. Over the course of the year, the charge points were accessed 765 times by 95 different people dispensing 8,500 kWh – enough to travel more than 25,000 miles in a Nissan Leaf.

The Future

The amount of usage from the charge points has led to the University of Southampton planning further installations, “Uptake has been good and steady, they’re a useful asset to have on-site because it gives a bit of assurance and supports in people’s thinking: if they make the switch to an EV, there is the infrastructure for charging available for them. The timing of putting them in was a bit of an experiment, but it’s paid off, and we’re building on it” added Adam. Four bays have been earmarked for electric vehicle charge points at another site, and the University are planning to move ahead with further installations before the end of the year.

 

Overall, the pilot has been a success, and the demand for EV and PHEV charging is definitely there and increasing for people visiting the University. One challenge the University thought that would occur is that they might not have installed enough charge points and an EV user may turn up to a fully stacked set of charge points at their main visitor car park (Highfield). To overcome this, they have an attendant on-site during hours of operation who will provide information for visitors about the alternative sites for charging.

Test Valley, Chantry Centre, car park, EV charge point, Test Valley, fully funded

Test Valley’s fully-funded charge points

Test Valley Borough Council have recently installed 14 electric vehicle charge points across eight public car parks in Andover and Romsey.    Along the way, they have navigated uncertainties around usage levels, a wide range of technical options and different financial offerings.

It’s a story that’s common to councils nationwide as they begin their own transitions to EVs.

Where to start?

Central government has outlined its ambitions to ban internal combustion engine vehicles from sale by 2035.  While this is a noble ambition, it has fallen to local authorities to provide the necessary infrastructure for the switch to electric.   Local authorities then have to find a way of solving the problem, often starting from scratch.

Steve Raw, Engineering and Transport Manager outlined the problem. “We were very aware of a lack of knowledge and expertise within the Borough Council in terms of how best to proceed.  There are many types of chargers and various procurement and funding models available, so it’s hard to know where to start.

It’s also fraught with risk, especially around levels of usage of the charge points, once installed. “Our worst-case scenario would be installing charge points that weren’t used.  Our car park in Romsey often reaches 90% capacity at peak times, so if dedicated EV bays were empty, it would pressurise the whole system.”

It’s easy to imagine the criticism such a scenario might invite.  For that reason, Test Valley Borough Council were reluctant to commit council funds towards an EVCP programme.

Deciding to install an EV charge point programme

Nonetheless, with central government making their electric transport vision clear, and local councillors keen to push forward with green infrastructure projects, the Council decided to take the plunge and install in CPs in Andover and Romsey. “It’s a chicken and egg situation – without public EVCPs, the public don’t have the confidence to switch to EVs.  But without EVs there’s no-one to use the EVCPs”.  The sensible way to solve this puzzle is to install smaller EVCP programmes and expand them as the electric vehicle stock increases.

Assistance from the Central Southern Regional Framework

Test Valley Borough Council contacted Hampshire County Council about the Central Southern Regional Framework which provides an efficiency procurement route for EV infrastructure.  “As a contract manager, we’d need to employ a transport consultant or build up our in-house knowledge.  The Central Southern Regional Framework allowed us to piggy-back off of the learning from other projects under the scheme.  And importantly, it also offered the possibility of external funding.

Advice and Charge Point Funding from Joju Charging

Joju undertook a full feasibility study, which looked at possible locations for the charge points and their expected usage.  The feasibility study provided I formation on:

  • Whether a site is considered viable, unviable or marginal
  • Whether there is access to existing electrical infrastructure
  • Whether the site is best suited for fast or rapid chargers
  • Estimated costs (pre-survey)

Under the Central Southern Framework, public authorities have the option of using Joju to provide finance for EVCPs.  Here we pay for the charge points and recoup the investment by charging drivers for charging from the EV charge points.  Test Valley Brough Council followed this approach as it takes the investment risk away from the public sector.  In future, councils can deploy far more public charge points across their regions via a funded route than would be possible if purely council funded.

A fully-funded charge point programme

Test Valley Borough Council now have a total of 14 electric vehicle charge points (with 18 useable sockets), installed across eight sites.   Sites in Andover that now have EV infrastructure include Borden Gates, Chantry Centre, Shepherd’s Spring Lane, George Yard, and South Street.  Alma Road, Lortemore Place, and Princes Road in Romsey also have new EV charge points.

The sites are operating under a mix of funding models.  Joju Charging fully funds three locations, and the other five are part-funded by the Council.  The latter was made possible as with Joju’s assistance; the Council successfully applied for an OLEV grant under the on-street residential charging scheme (ORCS) the five jointly-funded sites.

We’ll be reviewing the performance of the charge points over the coming years.  Once we get to a point where EV drivers can’t charge because the bays are full and there’s not enough capacity, we can expand the provision of charge points.  We’ve learned a lot along the way and could do a second phase very easily”.

Find out more

Councillor Tony Page, Reading Borough Council, lamp post charger, lamp post electric car charging point, City EV, Cityline100

Lamp post charging points in Reading

Like many councils across the country, Reading Borough Council are looking at providing electric car charging infrastructure for their residents.  The aim is to increase the uptake of electric vehicles across their region, and thereby reduce carbon dioxide emissions (climate change) and NOx and particulate pollution (local air quality and public health).

Electric vehicle charging infrastructure is clearly required and it is up to local government to provide it.”, explained Councillor Tony Page.  “We’re therefore looking at all options to increase uptake of EV within the Borough”.

Given that there are an estimated 52,000 people in Reading with no off-street parking, Reading Borough Council decided to develop a scheme that could serve this section of the community.

Lamp post charging points

The most elegant solution in this case is to use lamp post electric car chargers.  These use small EV charge points attached to the lamp post itself and served from the existing electrical supply to that lamp post.  It removes the need for additional street furniture, by using the existing infrastructure.

Joju were chosen to install a total of 15 charge points on lamp posts on Coventry Road, Filey Road, Manchester Road, St Bartholemews Road, East Street, Anstey Road Caversham Road and Wantage Road.  The locations were chosen from responses to the council’s ‘Go Electric’ public consultation, whereby residents with an electric car, or planning to get an electric car, could request charge points in their locality.

City EV’s lamp post chargers

For this project, we chose City EV Cityline 100 Smart Charging units.  These are ‘Elexon approved’, which means they are certified for  being used powered by unmetered public street lighting. The charge points are currently free to use, but in future they will be accessed by RFID card or via a mobile phone app.  City EV also make a contactless card payment version of the charge point, which offers another convenient payment method for councils.

The lamp post charging points are 3.6 kW units due to the size of the electricity supply to the lamppost, but these are perfectly sufficient for an overnight charge.

Procuring lamp post charging points

The scheme was procured through the Central Southern Regional Framework, providing Reading Borough Council with a rapid and simple procurement and project development process.  The Framework is developing a coherent charging network for councils across the south of England.

Sites for lamp post electric car chargers

Although the Go Electric consultation produced a long list of potential sites, not all of these were technically simple.  Many of the lamp posts in Reading are on the house side of the pavement, meaning that additional street side columns would be required, plus additional cabling running under the pavement from the lamp post.

Therefore, for this first phase it was decided to focus solely on simple lamp post charging points and so the sites chosen were those where the lamp posts were located on the kerb side of the pavement.

Technically the installation of the charge points was very simple – the electricity supply was already in place so it was just a question of mounting the charge point on the lamp post column and registering this with the back-office payment system.  It’s also more cost effective – because the electricity supply is already in place, the expense of getting new connections can be saved.

The future of lamp post charging points

These lamp post charging points are just the start for Reading Borough Council. “We’re bringing forward our new Transport Plan, which will take a broader more holistic view of transport in the City”, said Councillor Page.  “We recognise that switching from fossil fuel vehicles to EVs helps with pollution, but doesn’t address congestion in the city – a car is a car, electric or not!  So it’s important to take a broader vision of transport, and look at more radical potential options like introducing low emission zones”. That said, further lamp post charging points, as well as units in public car parks and workplaces, are likely to be developed over the coming years.

Overall, lamp post charging points are an ideal technical solution for low cost, simple charging solutions for urban areas that lack off street parking.  With 40% of homes nationwide having no off-street parking, lamp post electric car chargers look an essential piece of technology for making the electric vehicle transition available to all.

Find Out More ….

  • We’re helping public authorities develop their electric vehicle charging infrastructure.  You can see our case studies here
  • We’re appointed to the Transport for London framework, specifically to install lamp post electric car chargers across London Boroughs
  • See here for further information about lamp post charging points

 

Bitterne, rapid charger, taxi, fast charger, bay markings, ev only

Rapid Chargers in Southampton

As part of their ongoing wider city council programme on clean transport to improve air quality; Southampton City Council have introduced their first rapid 50kW charging point for electric taxi usage at Lances Hill Car Park, in Bitterne Village. This charging station has the capacity to fully charge an Electric Vehicle in 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the Electric Vehicle’s capacity. This gives the council capacity for electric taxis to be able to charge their vehicle quickly in between journeys; making an incredibly efficient, low-carbon service for taxi and private hire vehicles. Increasing the availability of rapid charging stations around the city will incentivise an increase in the number of electric taxis within Southampton.

Why Rapid Charging?

Following a large roll-out by Southampton City Council of fast EV charging infrastructure throughout public car parks in the city, the council decided to initiate its rapid charging network for electric taxi and private hire use. By improving the accessibility of fast and rapid chargers around the city, the council hope to incentivise more taxis to make the switch to electric vehicles and contribute to the clean air strategy within the city. The initial motivation for Southampton City Council to install their first rapid charger was to incentivise the use of electric taxi and private hire vehicles within the city. Rob Gloyns, Air Quality Project Officer at Southampton City council says “through our Local NO2 Plan and Clean Air Strategy, we have put measures in place to upgrade taxis to cleaner vehicles over the next few years. The key issue we faced was that there was nowhere for the drivers to quickly charge their vehicle during their hours of operation. However, by providing the taxi trade with the infrastructure they need, we hope to see a large increase in the amount of electric taxis within Southampton”.

Southampton City Council are currently offering trials of electric taxis for local drivers, and hope this experience will provide extra information to employees within the taxi service in order to make the switch easier. The council are also offering monetary incentives to make the switch from older, more polluting taxis to low emission alternatives.

Installing rapid chargers

The key challenge with installing rapid chargers relates to the installation itself.  Because the units a very high-powererd, a new connection needed to be put in place, which the local network operator installed prior to Joju arriving on site.  The ABB rapid charger units are very large, weighing more than 250kg, and need to be craned into position.  Once in place, all that was needed was to wire the unit in; itself a major challenge due to the physical size of the wiring required.

Using Rapid Chargers

One of the smaller issues has been allocating the charge point to electric taxis only. To incentivise the trade to increase the amount of electric vehicles in operation in Southampton the charge point will be completely free for the taxis to use for an introductory period. Limiting the use to taxis as opposed to public use means that taxis won’t have to worry about the charging station not being available.

The council have also installed a 22kW fast charging dual socketed unit in the same car park which will enable two public vehicles to charge at the same time. This therefore enables the public to be able to use this car park as a charging point when in and around the city.

Conclusion

This is part of a city-wide programme to increase the availability fast and rapid charging stations. In the coming months Southampton City Council plan a more centrally based rapid charge to be installed. Outside of rapid charging, Southampton are looking at further fast chargers located around the city car parks. They will also be reviewing usage of the rapid chargers and hope to expand more in the future. With plans to trial electric vehicles for the taxi trade and the range of other supporting incentives the council fully expect the number of electric vehicles used in the service to increase over the next few years.

Find out more …

Rotherham, Metropolitan, Borough, Council, Wellgate, car park, solar PV

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council’s Full Set

Whilst we have seen residential customers installing the complete set of solar PV, battery storage, and electric vehicle chargepoints, it’s something of a rarity at a larger scale.  Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, however, have just completed a £600k scheme installing electric vehicle charge points across the borough, combining this with solar PV and battery storage at some of the sites.  Steve Brown, Transportation Officer, explains: “We’ve been very interested in the potential to replace our diesel/petrol fleet with electric vehicles to reduce carbon emissions and address air quality in the borough.  But we were very aware that doing so would increase our electricity consumption, and nationally there’d be a problem generating the electricity.  So we have looked to manage these knock-on effects ourselves by installing an equivalent amount of solar PV at the same time to offset this.”  And it’s not just the amount of new electricity that was a concern: “We wanted to use batteries to store this sustainable energy for us to use when we needed it, rather than when it was available

Developing the Scheme

The flagship site in the programme is the Wellgate multi-storey car park, which features 5 dual Alfen Eve charge points, 87kW of solar PV and 3 Tesla Powerwall’s for storage.  The solar PV was hosted in a unique way, on the top deck of the multi-storey.  “It’s an odd feature of almost every multi-storey car park in the country that no-one parks on the top-deck”, says Steve.  “They’re massively underutilised assets, so we took the decision to close the top deck and use this space for generating solar electricity.

An additional five sites incorporated both solar PV and electric vehicle charge points.  Hellaby Depot, Rawmarsh Library, Riverside House, Rother Valley Country Park, and Thrybergh Country Park host 17 dual charge points and 141 kW of solar PV.

Aston Health Centre, Drummond Street car park, Walker Street car park and Wath Library are also home to dual chargepoints, increasing the coverage of the public EV charging network in the Rotherham Metropolitan area.

If we build it, they will come

The main difficulty we had was whether the scheme would work at all”, said Steve.  “There’s a certain amount of ‘If we build it, they will come’ when developing a chargepoint scheme.  But Rotherham does not have the same level of per capita income as parts of southeastern England, and we didn’t know how quickly the community here will take up EVs, as they are still more expensive than petrol or diesel vehicles.

Funding from the Government’s Clean Air Fund early measures programme provided the initiative to get the scheme off the ground, and Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council instructed Joju Solar to install the project, following a mini-tender through the ESPO Framework.  Joju Solar are uniquely well placed to deliver schemes like this as we are one of the largest installers of Public Sector EV charge point programmes, as well as having decades of experience installing solar PV and battery storage.

Our fears have been unfounded – the chargepoints are being widely used, and people are prepared to use charge points at outlying council offices and country parks.  From our point of view, it’s worked extremely well”.  The Council are seeing the solar PV generation being used on their own sites, reducing bills, and the battery storage is covering lighting requirements overnight.

A Holistic Public Sector Approach to EV Charge Points

Rotherham’s approach appears to be paying dividends, and there’s an appetite for more.  “The whole system has been really well thought out – there’s chargers in the basement for staff and outside for public use.  We’d like to do more of the same – perhaps in innovative locations like schools and colleges as well”.

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council’s pioneering scheme is a strong example to other councils, particularly in the way that they have looked at the larger energy picture.   Electrifying transport will inherently increase demand for electricity, and it shows a truly holistic approach to sustainability to consider how this will be provided as part of one installation programme.

Find Out More

  • We’ve developed the Joju Charging Portal – an information hub for public sector bodies looking to install electric vehicle charge point programmes
  • The Rotherham Metropolitan Council scheme was procured through the ESPO framework
  • See how the complete set of solar PV, battery storage and electric car charge points can help in the home
fleet, Hampshire Scientific Services, EV, New Motion

Fleet Charging for Hampshire County Council

Hampshire County Council have recently completed the installation of 37 charge points for their electric vehicle fleet, which can charge a total of 54 electric vehicles. The aim is to switch their diesel fleet to electric vehicles in order to reduce their carbon emissions that is a part of their Energy and Carbon Management Programme. Since 2010 the council have accomplished their targets and successfully reduced their carbon emissions throughout the first phase of the Programme. By switching diesel cars to electric vehicles (EVs), this will contribute to reducing their carbon emissions and can help inspire other employees to consider changing to an EV too.

Charge Points for Council Vehicles

Charge points for the council’s electric vehicle fleet have been installed in two phases. During phase one, 17 NewMotion charge points were installed across 8 locations in Hampshire in July 2018. The NewMotion charge point can charge at an optimal power of up to 22 kW. During phase two, 20 Alfen Eve charge points were installed across 10 locations in Hampshire in May 2019, which can charge 37 electric vehicles as the Alfen Eve charge points have 2 sockets per charge point. Alfen Eve charge points are vandalism proof due to the glass fibre enforced casing. The charge points were installed in car parks and employee’s private properties during phase one and two.

Challenges of Fleet Charge Point Installation

Project management over such a large-scale project for one council have been challenging as cooperation with many various stakeholders and council departments have been necessary to arrange for site surveys, specify charge point locations and moreover.  Joju’s Operations Director, Joe Gabriel explains: “With so many sites wrapped up in one scheme, smooth coordination of the works is critical to delivering the scheme.  Good communication, and flexibility in the delivery programme is essential to coordinating the installation works.  That’s why each project has its own dedicated programme manager, and why we use our own in-house electrical teams“.

Replicating Hampshire’s Approach

Hampshire County Council have already planned more instalments of electric vehicle charging points for their evolving fleet and they are currently increasing their public charge points. As pioneers in this space, Hampshire developed their own procurement framework (Central Southern Regional Framework) for the works, which is now being offered across the south of the UK.  This will allow other councls and public bodies to benefit from Hampshire County Council’s experience, and be able to replicate this kind of scheme in their own area.  The intention is to grow this to become a uniform public charging network across the entire region.

Find Out More

Electric police car, charging, chargepoint, New Motion, Central Southern REgional Framework

The Thin Blue Line Goes Green

The trouble is that the bad guys don’t have environmental targets”, declared Dennis Ord,
Head of Transport for Surrey & Sussex Police.  “That means our priority is a vehicle that can deliver the performance we need, but also at low environmental impact”.

Electric Police Cars

With this in mind Surrey and Sussex Police purchased 60 BMW i3 full electric cars.   The vehicles will be used by officers to carry out day-to-day policing activities such as visiting victims or witnesses to take statements, or as part of door-to-door inquiries.   Environmental targets were not the only benefit here – the much lower running costs of electric vehicles compared to diesel or petrol, means that each force is expected to save £120,000 over the next five years.  That’s valuable funds that can be used elsewhere in the police budget.

Procuring electric car chargepoints

Of course, the 60 new electric vehicles needed their own dedicated chargepoints, and with the vehicles on order, installed at short notice.  Surrey and Sussex Police decided to procure through the Central Southern Regional Framework, run by Hampshire County Council, which offers a streamlined procurement process, whilst simultaneously ensuring high quality products and service.  The Central Southern Regional Framework is available to all councils and public bodies (health service, police, fire etc) within the south of England.

Smooth Project Management

30 fast chargers were installed for Surrey Police for across 8 sites in November 2018, followed by a further 40 chargepoints for Sussex Police in December 2018.  “Our main challenges were the rapid turnaround times required – if the vehicles arrived and they couldn’t charge, it would have been a disaster”, said Joju’s Operations Director Joe Gabriel.  “These were also live police sites, requiring careful project management to ensure disruption to police activities was minimised.

Police Leading the way

The Police are modernising their policing with the procurement of a fleet of electric vehicles and associated infrastructure – benefitting the environment and their balance sheet at the same time. As such it is a perfect example of both the benefits of institutions switching to electric fleets and of how public institutions can procure the necessary infrastructure.

The bad guys don’t stand a chance!

Further reading

Bedford Road, Southampton, electric car charging station, public charging station

Cleaning Transport with Southampton City Council

 

Addressing Local Air Quality

Southampton City Council have just completed the installation of 30 electric vehicle chargepoints in the city centre multi-storey car parks.  The scheme is part of a wider city council programme on clean transport aimed at improving air quality in the region by reducing particulates and NOx emissions, which includes encouraging public transportation and  reducing idling engines.  Councillor Christopher Hammond outlines the case : “We’ve been one of 5 places in the UK identified as having an air quality issue, so addressing this is a priority for our local sustainable transport agenda. We’re working extremely hard to improve local air quality in Southampton and encouraging the uptake of electric vehicles is a very important part of our strategy.”

The idea behind the EV charging station programme is to encourage the uptake of electric vehicles in the region by making public charging infrastructure more visible.  When the public can see that there is a wide network of public EV charging stations, it reduces range anxiety and encourages the purchase of EVs.  As EVs become more widely adopted this will have positive knock on consequences for air quality, as well as lower CO2 emissions from a climate change perspective.  “We’re also encouraging the uptake of electric vehicles by offering a 90% reduction in parking charges, and we’re consulting on making the Itchen Bridge toll-free for electric cars.”

EV chargepoints for public car parks

Southampton City Council settled on 5 central multi-storey car parks for the first phase of their EV charge station programme, with 6 chargepoints installed at each location.  The sites have high usage, and comparatively long stay times, which means the chargepoints will have good utilisation.  Additionally, electricity already existed on site, and new grid supplies did not need to be installed.  This allowed a quick turnaround on the project, and Joju completed the project around  in 6 weeks from contract award to commissioning and handover.

The council chose New Motion smart chargers for the project for three main reasons.  First, they offer dynamic load balancing, which allows available power to be smartly allocated between cars without overloading the electrics.  Joju Operations Director, Joe Gabriel, explains: “We’ve installed a 22kW 3-phase connection at each site to power the 6 chargers.  If one car is charging, this will receive the full 22kW, equivalent to a 3-phase fast charger.  If three cars are charging, each will receive 7.2 kW, equivalent to a normal fast home charger.  And if all 6 bays are in use simultaneously this drops to 3.6kW.  It means we can be certain we won’t overload the wires if there’s a high charging demand.”   The units also allow users to access via a smart card, and although the scheme will be free initially, in future it will allow the council to make a small charge to the users.  Third, the council also liked the “simple, sleek, smart and subtle” look of the New Motion units, which were considered less gaudy than other alternatives.

Smooth Project Management

Although the works were broadly straightforward, the scheme wasn’t without operational challenges.  The Marlands site had an old electrical fuseboard which required shutting down by the grid operator so we could safely make the connection.  A 2-hour slot was scheduled to make the connection, during which time all lifts in the multi-storey were out of action.  The Joju team managed the flow of people and cars during this time to ensure that customer visits were as hassle free as possible while the works were carried out.

Rob Gloyns, Clean Air Zone Project Officer commented:  “We were grateful for Joju’s smooth project management as it allowed the council to take a more hands-off approach to the delivery phase.  They have been extremely straightforward to deal with, and we’ve known exactly who at Joju has been dealing with what.”

Just the Beginning

Councillor Hammond sums up the first phase of the scheme “We’ve been very pleased with the partnership we’ve built with Joju to install these units – it’s been a seamless piece of project delivery, completed to a very high standard.”  The programme can now focus on expanding the scheme to other areas of the city, including ground car parks and on-street parking.  Joju have also recently won a tender for the installation of EV chargepoints across Hampshire, so the Southampton scheme will be integrated with a wider EV charging station roll-out across the county.

Further Reading

Zappi, myenegie, solar charger, ev charger

A Happy Zappi Customer

Roger has just bought a Zappi electric car charger to power his brand new Volkswagen e-golf. Roger has had the good fortune to be inspired by the latest electric vehicle technology up close. A Director of Photography by trade, Roger got the electric vehicle bug when filming the Formula E cars in action on the Greenland ice-sheet! Further work followed filming the Jaguar i-pace, and that inspired Roger himself to make his next car a fully electric one.

The Zappi EV charger

The Zappi is usually used to charge electric cars directly off the excess electricity produced by solar panels.  However, Roger chose a Zappi charger for his home, even though he doesn’t own solar panels yet. “We’re debating whether to move to New Zealand, but we got the Zappi in case we stayed; if we do solar is next on the list for us”. However, Roger saw the benefits of the Zappi unit, not just for allowing him to integrate with solar in future, but also in terms of the programmability of the existing device. “I can set it to start charging at 12:30 at night for a full 8 hours at the night rate of 7p per unit. It’s a great product, and seems to have more control than other units.

Flexible Electricians

The installation was completed in just a few hours. Our electrician found a convenient wiring route from the consumer unit to a discrete charging unit mounted in the porch. “I thought we’d have to go out and though the garage, but the electrician thought on his feet and found a neat route under the floor and up into the consumer unit.

Another EV convert

Overall, Roger’s very pleased with his step into the world of electric transportation. “I was delighted with the Zappi installation. Great communication, a seamless install, and a great product”. And of course, Roger filmed the whole installation, making this great little video.

Further Reading

• Find out more about the Zappi charger here
• Find out more about electric car charging points for your home
• Are you thinking about the complete set of solar PV, battery storage and EV charging?