EV Adoption and Charging
Our cars are responsible for, on average, 2.9 tonnes of our annual household emissions. UK wide transport is the single biggest source of emissions and cars account for more than 50% of that.
The UK government is driving EV adoption through incentives and a plan to ban the sale of new pure Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars by 2030 and plug-in hybrids by 2035. With the average 15-year life of a car, this means most cars on the road by 2050 will be EVs and likely a much faster transition in our community.
EV Charging
The best, most convenient, and lowest cost way to charge an EV is at home. Most homes in Somerford Keynes have off-street parking, where homeowners can install their own chargers and will benefit from community generation.
However, at Lower Mill Estate, many homes have parking spaces away from the house and there is a lot of shared car parking. This is where we will focus community EV charging efforts.
Community EV Charging
At LME we will work with HFG and SSEN to plan a scalable EV charging solution that can be expanded over time while avoiding too much return digging.
Ducting
Ducting installed in the ground that should enable expansion of charging without repeated digging.
Public EV Charging
Ample and expanding charging in the car parks, again designed to avoid repeated digging. Given the demographics of LME visitors, this needs to scale rapidly. These chargers would be pay to use.
Private Parking
Homes with private parking spaces near, but not adjacent, to their homes, should be able to lay their own cables in the ducts so they can charge from their home electricity without repeated digging
Shared Trenches
If LME implements a heat network it may be possible to share some of the trenches to hold both water pipes for the head network and ducts of the EV charging cables.