The UK has an opportunity to incorporate smart technology and Internet of Things (IoT) into its physical, energy and transport infrastructure, to improve public services and the overall quality of life for its citizens. Over the past few years, the National Government and UK Local Authorities (LA) have been taking proactive steps to implement and support this smart city transition, with key cities such as Bristol, London and Manchester pledging carbon neutrality by 2050 or earlier.

City-wide and integrated approach

Matching supply with customer demand is a similar challenge for traditional electricity network players and those entering the world of eMobility.

Electricity grids are designed to accommodate peak electricity demand so that the lights stay on during that coldest of frosty evenings in mid-winter. At the same time, car companies are exploring how to bring their brand-new electric vehicles to a market where customers expect to drive that one long-distance journey to visit relatives each year without running out of fuel.

With electric vehicles making an increasing impact at the forefront of the energy transition, it makes sense to consider the impact of electric vehicle fleets and the value chain of fleet EV charging that businesses can take advantage of. In advance of the team’s upcoming webinar, we spoke to Delta-ee electric vehicle expert Alex Lewis-Jones to learn more about this research.

How do you define a fleet?

Earlier this year, my colleague Philippa Hardy wrote about the launch of OVO Energy’s Vehicle-2-Grid charger. This Vehicle-2-Grid (V2G) charger is set to be used in project Sciurus, one of eight Innovate UK V2G demonstration projects launched this year. From this summer, the projects will begin distributing thousands of these units across the UK, as the largest ever deployment of V2G technology across Europe.

While exciting and poised to revolutionise electricity markets, V2G remains at this demonstration phase rather than being fully ‘commercialised’. We recently reviewed the current status of this V2G market and in this blog we share some key findings.

BP has announced the purchase of the UK’s largest charge point supplier and operator, Chargemaster. It is the latest in a string of acquisitions in the battle for the Electric Vehicle (EV) customer and BP appears to follow in the footsteps of Shell, its key oil major rival. What then does the EV business mean for the business model of an oil major?

Diversification

In the energy sector, we hear a lot of discussion about “the customer”. On the one hand this is great to hear; a sign that an industry that hasn’t traditionally been customer centric is now gradually becoming more so. But it’s also a horrible generalisation – one that we have also been guilty of.

Of course, there is no such thing as the customer, especially when it comes to electric vehicles. There are myriad different customer ‘types’, differing in a multitude of ways, from hard characteristics such as their driving habits or whether they have off road parking, to soft characteristics such as attitudes, values and preferences.