Van fleets set to share charging facilities

The organisation said its shared charging committee, launched at the start of this year with members including the AA, National Grid and Royal Mail, had made rapid progress with its work, helped by strong enthusiasm from fleets.

Paul Hollick, chair at the AFP, said:

We’re now in a position where there is a two-pronged strategy being adopted. To kick things off, we’re looking to provide an online matchmaking service that will link fleets that have spare charging capacity at their premises with others who need charging in those areas. Once we’ve created an introduction, those businesses will make their own commercial arrangements, although we are here to offer advice if needed.

The next step will be to commission an online platform that will enable a more structured approach.

Hollick said there was general acceptance within the EV committee that charging needed to be priced at a maximum of 40 pence per kWh to make shared charging viable.

We need the price to be low enough that it is attractive to fleet users and high enough that it provides a worthwhile margin for charging providers. Pricing is the crux to wider adoption of this idea and we believe that this is the sweet spot.

He added:

If we can make the platform work, it should be quite a substantial boost for fleet EV charging. While it is not a universal solution – the provision of spare charging is probably not going to be evenly distributed across the country – it should provide a useful option for fleets beyond home charging, their own workplace charging, and pay-on-use public chargers.

Research undertaken by the AFP last October revealed almost six out of 10 van fleets (58%) would consider sharing their depot or public charging infrastructure with others to make electrification more practical.

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