UK’s charging infrastructure grants schemes to continue for another year

The Office for Low Emission Vehicles confirmed the continuation of the ‘electric vehicle homecharge scheme’ (EVHS) and ‘workplace charging scheme’ (WCS) for another year. OLEV also re-confirmed the continuation of the ‘on street residential chargepoint scheme’ (ORCS) for another year.

As from the 1st of April 2020 the grant for these schemes will be set at £350 ($434) towards the cost of purchase and installation of a chargepoint at home through the electric vehicle homecharge scheme, and £350 ($434) towards a chargepoint socket at work through the workplace charging scheme. This is a reduction from £500 ($620) to £350 ($434). The new rate will apply to installations on or after 1st April 2020 for EVHS, and will apply to voucher applications submitted on or after 1st April 2020 for WCS.

The change in the grant will enable twice as many people to benefit from a grant (from 30,000 to 57,000 under the EVHS). This will support the expected increase in the update of electric vehicles.

The government is extending who can benefit from the EVHS scheme to include larger electric motorbikes. Currently only electric cars and vans are eligible. It is also addressing the needs of businesses by doubling the number of sockets allowed under the workplace charging scheme from 20 to 40 .

Local authorities can apply for a grant to cover part of the capital costs of installing chargepoints for residents who lack off-street parking. The grant rate will be set at £6,500 ($8,060) per chargepoint. The government can extend this to £7,500 (9,300) per chargepoint in certain circumstances and only on occasions where a local authority has demonstrated a need for this level of support. The change in the grant rate, from £7,500 to £6,500, will apply for applications for the 2020/21 financial year.

By lowering the cap, the scheme will be able to support more chargepoints with the available funding. This will support more local authorities overall and contribute to a better spread of chargepoints across the country. The government wants to make sure every local authority in the country has the chance to access this funding so we can level up provision across the UK.

Further, while the scheme will remain broadly first come, first serve, the government will look to prioritise on basis of need and whether previous funding has been awarded in order to ensure we level up provision across the country.

To date over 120,000 domestic chargepoint installations have benefited from HMG grants as well as over 6,500 workplace installations, across the UK.  Reducing the grant rate will provide better value for money for the taxpayer. These are still key government incentive schemes that will continue to support the deployment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure across the UK. The average cost of chargepoint installations has steadily reduced since the introduction of the schemes, so the decrease is in line with this.

ORCS has supported over 60 local authorities to deliver over 2,000 chargepoints for residents who do not have offstreet parking. ORCS has been running for 3 years and the chargepoint market has developed considerably since, with a wider range of chargepoint operators and products in the market with overall volumes rising.