Electric Car Charging Points Hit by 38,000% Surge in Energy Bills
Electric vehicle charging companies have warned that they could be forced to raise prices as they battle 38,000% increases to their energy bills. The Telegraph has more.
ChargeUK, which represents operators, says charging stations are being squeezed by network charges that have increased dramatically in just a few years.
In one example, major charging provider Osprey said its bills at a site in Wolverhampton had increased from £87 per year to £33,651 per year since 2022 – an increase of 38,579%.
Rival Fastned said it was now paying £41,000 a year for a site in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, while a third charging provider complained that its network charges had increased by 250% in just four years and are now “well into six figures”.
Network charges are levied to fund the maintenance and expansion of Britain’s electricity grid, which is undergoing a once-in-a-generation overhaul as part of plans to reach Net Zero.
These charges are set by Ofgem, the regulator, based on cost projections provided by network companies such as the National Grid.
The large rise in network charges follows changes to how they are calculated, made in 2023, with greater emphasis now being put on the size of a site’s grid connection rather than power consumption.
However, ChargeUK says the system now effectively penalises EV charging companies for “building ahead of demand” even though this is what the Government is urging them to do.
Ministers have set a target of 300,000 public EV chargers by 2030 and a string of reports by Parliament and think tanks have repeatedly identified charger availability as key to tackling so-called “range anxiety”.
Worth reading in full.
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Net Zero shooting itself in the foot.
There is a big difference between grid connection size and power consumption for many of these sites because they are so little used. The obvious solution is to close them.
Oh what a terrible shame – I feel so sorry for those poor folk who just thought they were doing the right thing!
By means of blatant virtue signaling! Lets face it, no-one bought one because they were cheap, or efficient, or even safe!
So it sounds like they are bitching about the ‘standing charge’ (or business equivalent of it) and how much it’s increased, mostly to subsidise and fund grid upgrades for renewable generation and tech… like what they operate?!…. Hmmm
So it’s OK to stiff the general public with these charges you directly benefit from, but not your business…?
It is the sort of article that makes you laugh much like the supposed uptick in battery car sales as fuel prices surge, especially cheap to make diesel. I happened to go to two public car parks last year within the space of a week – East Grinstead and Ashtead. I noted that ALL the charging bays in BOTH car parks were empty and that added up to quite a lot of bays. The bays in Ashtead were new to me as I used to live around there and pass by occassionally and was shocked at how many there were.
Yes seen same near us in the local Lidl and other shop parks – clearly ticking a box to get a gold star, but never used that I see…
Same here in Totton, they put 6 bays in one small car park, these remain mostly empty, so of course 200m away they are putting in a further dozen??? Who exactly do they think will use these? Most be some incentive cash being handed out to the car park owners…..
Oh dear, what a shame.
A rather sweary explanation of why EVs etc. are rubbish according to an Aussie
https://x.com/Artemisfornow/status/2037881162257813523
Ideally the market would sort this out.
Unfortunately, the entire thing will be corrupted by the central planners who will find a way to use our confiscated money to keep these guys in the game and continue to obfuscate the real cost of electric cars
It couldn’t get more insane in New-New-Labour/MilliWatt World.
(Tuesday says…. Hold My Beer!)
Tellygraf headline is wrong – it’s not the energy bill – it’s the standing charge.
My home has a nominal 14.4 kW (60 Amp) connection to the local bit of the grid. My standing electricity charge is 48p/day or £175.20 per year.
The Hamilton site has apparently got 8 ultra-rapid chargers. Ultra-rapid chargers are up to 300 kW each, so that is 2,400 kW if all 8 bays are going at full bore. I’ll bet they actually have more capacity than that – you’d never install a connection that was already potentially maxed-out. 2,400 kW means the whole station 166.6 times my domestic 60 Amp supply.
£175.20 * 166.6 = £29,083 per year
They say they’re paying £41,000 /year.. It’s not clear if that is just the standing charge or the energy as well. If it’s just standing charge that’s pro-rata 40% more than my home connection. Have they installed a connection with 40% headroom? Well, I would.
£41k standing charge seems no more unreasonable than my domestic connection.
So many missed chances to take control and ensure that there was integration and not erasure of the local population. Now that ship has sailed and it seems that, at best, there will be highly balkanised populations and at worst eradication of the native British people with civil unrest or armed conflict the option also on the table.