Peer-to-peer charging is just one of the strategies being explored in our REME project, which aims to grow electric vehicle use in rural areas…

As the UK’s transition from petrol and diesel to electric vehicles gathers pace, recent reports have drawn attention to potential inequity in access to charging infrastructure. Earlier this month, lobbying group, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders warned of a growing regional divide in the provision of public vehicle charging points. Last week, the Resolution Foundation thinktank highlighted the financial advantage afforded to homeowners with private driveways, who can benefit from off-peak tariffs. Our project, REME (Rural Electric Mobility Enabler) is helping to support the growth of electric vehicles in rural areas – we asked Head of Smart Mobility, Kim Smith about some of the strategies they are trialling to make it easier for every vehicle owner to make the switch.

REME is an Innovate UK-funded project that aims to promote and support the growth of electric vehicles in rural areas – essentially, to identify ‘where and what’ the needs are and explore strategies to meet them. To make the choice to go electric, people need to feel confident there is reliable charging infrastructure in place. DG Cities has been working with EDF Energy, Bonnet, Devon County Council and Field Dynamics on three key activities. First, establishing a ‘cold mapping’ methodology to identify potential charging sites, map needs and available connectivity - this means capturing data from advanced geospatial modelling and analysis and overlaying it on a map. Second, testing a peer-to-peer charging solution. And finally, trialling an evaluation tool for off-grid charging solutions.

Understanding demand and need

Every local authority has different priorities. In Devon, the priority is trying to work out where infrastructure needs to be put in place to support residents, as well as managing seasonal peaks in demand. As a former transport planning lead in a local authority, I have been in their position. Then, when we were assessing public requests for charging points, the number of requests in a particular location was taken as an indicator of demand. Our cold mapping exercise for REME has allowed us to look at an area in a much more nuanced way and see where the areas of real need are. In that sense, it’s a more equitable, data-driven approach.

For example, in one village, there was considerable demand from residents for charging points. We used the cold map to show that there was more than sufficient capacity from the National Grid, additionally there was a high level of digital connectivity. When we looked at the housing stock, we could also see that the majority of properties had access to private off-street parking, and on-street parking was fairly well distributed. This suggested that there were possibilities of relatively easy solutions - either people could install their own home charge points, or there could be a relatively straightforward provision of on-street units. But if the purpose of the exercise is tackling inequality, what happens if you don’t have your own drive? What happens when there’s no footway or available highway width for on street parking and your front door opens directly onto the road? One answer is developing peer-to-peer charging networks, whereby private charging points are made available to neighbours via an app, which looks after payment, hours of operation and insurance.

Finding alternative solutions

In another case study, we looked at households in Devon without off-street parking in a scenic, narrow-laned town centre. Working with project partner, Field Dynamics our cold map process identified homes where, again, it’s impossible to park on the street. This analysis also showed a council car park within walking distance, so with project partner EDF, who modelled the capacity of the car park to accommodate charge points, we investigated how the council might utilise that in a way that works for residents. Some of the different routes open to the local authority here might be acting as the delivery organisation to get charging points put in; entering into a joint venture with a charge point provider; or simply offering the space to a provider as a commercial proposition, if the area is popular with tourists, for instance. Here, potential operators have a reliable income from local residents using the infrastructure off-season, coupled with a steep rise over the summer months.

This work is vital because in rural areas, people depend more on their cars – there isn’t the same public transport network to support them when petrol and diesel are phased out. The shift to electric has to happen, but it has to be managed carefully and equitably.

REME has been a collaborative effort, both within our team, our consortium and with external agencies. English Heritage has shared useful information on visitor and vehicle numbers, and we have worked closely with Exmouth National Parks and the Forestry Commission. This allowed us to obtain real world data relating to seasonal variations in the numbers of visitors and vehicles. The advantage of working with these organisations at a local level is that we can help to inform their national strategy, while getting an understanding of how things work on the ground from site managers. We have also been looking at vehicle charging provision in holiday accommodation, from cottages and Airbnb rentals to hotels, investigating the case for asking these sites to share charge points with local residents.

A case study with applicability across the UK

As well as helping Devon develop their strategy, REME is valuable as a case study for other rural areas. More recently, it has informed our analysis of sites in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire with very different demographic trends, including semi-urban centres which are well serviced by public transport.

Meeting the challenge of the transition to EVs requires a mix of pragmatism and optimism for innovation. For example, a peer-to-peer strategy relies on people being willing to share their private space – to what extent will they? What are the barriers to you letting your neighbour charge their car on your driveway? One of the key issues we identified is the transaction itself, and how that process is dealt with – neighbours don’t want to physically ‘sell’ energy to each other. An important aspect of the software Bonnet is developing is that it takes care of this transaction, the booking slots, even potentially restricting who is able to use a particular charging point. In this way, homeowners retain a sense of control, while supporting their community. To better understand these views, DG Cities and EDF conducted a local survey which gathered more than 1,000 responses. This data helped us understand the exact barriers to implementing a peer-to-peer system, as well as wider challenges to EV uptake.

There’s still a lot of work to do, but if we look at the popularity of an idea like Airbnb, where many people have welcomed the concept of letting guests stay in their spare rooms, there is clearly some appetite and scope to extend this to vehicles. As with any innovation, it comes down to the community – if public engagement is successful, if people understand the potential benefits of the idea and how it works in practice, and if they trust the systems in place, it has the potential to be transformative. The end goal is cleaner, greener and safer transport that is available to all.