- Pilots aim to extend usefulness of near end-of-life green street cabinets as EV charge points
- Up to 60,000 street cabinets could be used in this way, tackling the current national shortfall in EV charging infrastructure
- Pilot rollout to take place as almost two-thirds of people in the
- First charger set to be installed in
Developed to help solve EV charging infrastructure needs by repurposing existing street furniture, the pilots will explore how this solution could be scaled to address the lack of chargers on
Etc. has announced its first installation location in
Whilst the
Through the trials, Etc. will scope a range of different technical, commercial and operational considerations with bringing this EV charge point network online, including:
* Technical - cabinet location, power availability, customer accessibility, digital customer experience and engineering considerations
* Civil planning - location, local council engagement, permissions and physical accessibility
* Commercial - public funding options, private investment, partnership, and wider financial modelling to establish a route to commercial benefit for the Group
* Operational - as a dedicated
While in its early development stages, the initiative has already been celebrated on the global stage at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), after being awarded an Innovation Honoree for 2024 for outstanding design and engineering.
The charging solution works by retrofitting the cabinets with a device that enables renewable energy to be shared to a charge point alongside the existing broadband service with no need to create a new power connection. EV charging can be deployed to cabinets that are in-use for current copper broadband services, or in those due for retirement, depending on the space and power available to the unit. Once the cabinet is no longer needed for broadband, as nationwide full fibre rollout progresses, the broadband equipment is recycled, and additional EV charge points can be added. This allows re-use of existing infrastructure while deploying more charge points at pace.
Whilst the pilot is being rolled out in the
"This is a key step in our mission to build products and services right now that work for the future, with positive transformation at the heart."
-ENDS-
For more information, please contact etc@the10group.com
Sources:
1 Etc. at
2 https://newsroom.bt.com/bt-group-to-launch-electric-vehicle-charging-pilots/
3 Etc. at
4 Zapmap's 2023 "EV charging points" survey https://www.zap-map.com/ev-stats/how-many-charging-points
5 HM Government's "Taking charge: the electric vehicle infrastructure strategy" report https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6245ba40e90e075f15381cf0/taking-charge-the-electric-vehicle-infrastructure-strategy.pdf
6Electrek's 'Here's how many EV chargers the US has and how many chargers it needs" https://electrek.co/2023/01/09/heres-how-many-ev-chargers-the-us-has-and-how-many-it-needs/#:~:text=There%20are%20currently%20more%20than,need%20to%20install%20by%202030
7National
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