A top Oxford economics professor has ridiculed the Government's lack of a plan for the roll-out of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, describing the market as a 'wild west'.
Sir Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford, poured scorn on the current approach to providing an EV charging network saying 'the potential for chaos is massive'.
'You might think faced with this transition from fossil fuels to electric cars that there would be some kind of plan; that there would be - just as we built the natural gas infrastructure - a map, a series of overarching objectives such as every citizen, every business should have access to a charging network.
'And you might think there would be a plan to integrate transport into the electricity networks and, as a new component of the electricity system, a way of bringing the institution of regulators together. Not a bit of it. What we have is a wild west out there. A world where anyone and everyone charges into territory and tries to mop up the profitable bits.'
He called for an integrated, planned infrastructure network working under tighter regulation.
The Government has pledged to release national guidance for EV charging delivery through the Office of Zero Emission Vehicles.
However, it is also consulting on introducing a statutory duty on councils to plan for the roll-out of EV charging infrastructure, suggesting that much of the responsibility could be devolved to those on the ground - raising the prospect of a patchwork of different systems across the country.
Integrate transport into electricity
Sir Dieter argued that you cannot simply replicate the petrol station model when it comes to EVs: 'That is not how it works.'
'They are completely different cost structures, completely different systems. The grid was never built for the motorway service stations, it was built for a completely different structure and set of purposes,' he said.
'And if we want electric charging to be both universal and efficient and therefore reasonably priced, we have to integrate transport into that electricity system, not integrate electricity into transport.'
'Electricity networks themselves depend critically on how charging is going to happen. If you want to have fast charging in the middle of the day, a world in which we try and optimise charging against the electricity network, where we can charge regardless of whether the wind is blowing and the sun is shining that is a whole different ballgame for the electricity grid.'
The recently knighted Oxford academic argued that the 'best outcome' - a battery swap system, where drivers exchange a used battery for a fully charged one at a charging station - was not available because of the car market.
'No car company wants that to happen because they can’t brand it, they can’t keep differentiation for their product, and that is why we have this massive heterogeneity of batteries and we are stuck with the battery system we have.'
Sir Dieter argued that under a plan, which integrated transport and electricity, 'roads with wires', as well as the regulation, there could still be competition in its delivery.
A 'free for all, laissez-faire approach however will not get us where we need to get to if we really want to decarbonise by 78% in 14 years'. He pointed out it was not just the charging network that needed to be prepared in the next 14 years but car companies and all the ancillary businesses around electrification of transport also need to plan out their own businesses.
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