David Hall, VP of power systems at Schneider Electric UK and Ireland whose technology is used to power the EV charging hub at the Birmingham NEC, says this is because many UK councils lack the ability to monitor the performance and availability of the EV charging stations that fall under their authority, despite huge investment to increase the number of publicly available devices over the last few years.
“UK roads will experience a surge in traffic over Christmas and New Year, raising concerns among EV drivers about possible delays to their journey due to the availability of EV chargers enroute," says Hall. "Their priority will be to find a free spot where they can charge their EV immediately. Drivers can always check the real-time status of chargers at planned stops via in-car systems or mobile apps. But range anxiety combined with concerns about the reliability of chargers, plus the knowledge that cold weather can drain battery life faster, will be on their minds.
"Regardless, a new FOI request found that the number of public EV chargers increased by 140% between 2022 and 2023. Yet less than 20% of UK councils have the means to track and assess the availability of their local EV charging stations. While only a ¼ of those councils reported that more than 80% of the devices that fell under their authority were fully operational.
"It’s evident that many councils would benefit from using software and solutions that monitor the performance of EV chargers, identify faulty or unavailable devices, and even repair them remotely. These systems eliminate many of the pain points EV drivers come up against, helping to restore confidence in EV charging, especially at this time of year."
Hall adds that better education and awareness of these types of remote monitoring systems would help local authorities and EV charging providers at enroute locations like motorway services, that will experience demand spikes in the coming weeks.
"Hopefully, in the new year we’ll see more collaboration between EV charging providers and their suppliers - across both the public and private sectors - to ensure reliability and stress-free travel,” he says.
