Research: Public smart charging could save electric car drivers more than £600 a year

Electric vehicle (EV) charging technology provider Connected Curb has today published data from the UK’s first smart street charging point trial, showing how using smart technology to optimize charging times can reduce the cost of charging for EV owners.

The real-world trial, dubbed Agile Streets, brought together a consortium of companies from the electric vehicle ecosystem, including Connected Kerb, to investigate how smart charging technologies can help reduce the load on the grid during periods of peak demand and thereby lower costs electric vehicles. transition to electric vehicles.

According to Connected Kerb, initial trial results show the technology could save drivers £604 a year in charging costs for electric car drivers who rely on public charging points, equivalent to a collective UK saving of over £4.1 billion a year until 2030.

The project also shows that peak energy demand could be reduced by 240MW, equivalent to boiling more than 1.4 million teapots.

Smart charging should also reduce demand on local grids, allowing more chargers to be installed to support the UK government’s target of 300,000 public electric car chargers by 2030, the company said.

Smart charging works by allowing electric vehicles to schedule charging for times when energy prices are cheapest, such as at night when demand is low, or on sunny and windy days when plenty of cheap solar and wind power is available.

This approach has already been adopted by a number of domestic charging technologies, but the Agile Streets trial sought to extend it to public chargers by providing users with an app that allowed them to plan the time needed to fully charge their car to take advantage of periods when electricity is cheapest. .

As part of the Agile Streets project, 100 Connected Curb street chargers were installed at 17 sites across four local authorities in Shropshire, Hackney, Glasgow and East Lothian. Drivers then had the option of smart charging in ‘ECO’ mode at 19p/kWh, which planned to charge at the cheapest time of day, or ‘booster’ mode at 33p/kWh, which immediately provided energy as a normal, mindless public charger. So charging an average 62kW Nissan LEAF from 20 per cent to 100 per cent using ECO mode would save £6.95 per session – equivalent to a 42 per cent saving.

Connected Curb said the approach could help strengthen the operating cost advantage electric vehicles enjoy over gasoline and diesel vehicles at a time when rising electricity prices have eroded some of those advantages.

“The energy price crisis is a major challenge for all industries,” said Chris Pateman-Jones, CEO of Connected Kerb. “In terms of going electric, we know it will close the gap between the cost of refueling a petrol or diesel car and the typically much lower cost of charging an electric car. That’s why now is the time to focus our attention on smart charging technologies. which could allow those dependent on public charging infrastructure to benefit from lower prices when electricity demand is lowest.

“The deployment of smart charging in public charging – both to reduce consumer costs and to minimize the impact of charging on the grid – is ground-breaking. The Agile Streets trial gives us the opportunity to ensure that we are using smart charging correctly, allowing us to accept all the outcomes of the trial and get ready to deploy this revolutionary infrastructure.”