• • • NEWS • • • 2025 is the year of smarter
charging for EV drivers By Daniel Forsberg, Marketing Manager for EVSE at global vehicle charging brand CTEK
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025 will be a year of smarter charging and greater choice for the UK’s Electric Vehicle drivers, as a new generation of EVs, chargepoints and tariffs arrive and are tried, tested and adopted. However, amid exciting innovations for EV drivers, for fleets and for the chargepoint operators and the national grid, action is needed to stimulate further consumer demand for the switch to electric mobility, but let’s look at the positives for the year ahead.
Significant numbers of public chargepoints were added to the UK network in 2024 and there are plenty more in the pipeline. Zapmap tallied more than 72,500 public charging devices at the end of November, a 32 per cent increase since the start of 2024.
And, thanks to the UK’s Public Charge Point
Regulations (PCPR), more public chargepoints will be working more of the time. Since November 24, operators of many public chargepoints have been required to offer contactless payment, 99 per cent reliability (for 50kW-plus chargepoints) and a free 24/7 telephone helpline.
Looking ahead, the National Audit Office reported in December that it believes the UK is on track to reach the Government’s target of 300,000 public chargepoints by 2030. And they will be needed: more than half of today’s EV drivers use the public charging network at least once a month. So, plenty of new public chargepoints to look
forward to in 2025 and beyond to help improve the charging experience and to allay concerns of fossil fuel drivers, particularly those without access to at-home charging.
What is also exciting about those 200,000-plus new public chargepoints to come is the added value they can bring thanks to new hardware and software capabilities. Today’s newest chargepoints are capable of much more than previous generations. They are able to use the latest communications standards to enable much smarter, flexible, automatic and secure charging sessions.
Those that can accommodate the latest Open Charge Point Protocol standard (OCPP 2.0.1) can provide Autocharge, a zero-touch streamlined charging experience for EV drivers, who will simply plug in to a chargepoint which will automatically communicate with the vehicle and, if a payment method has been previously set up, begin charging.
OCPP is already an IEC International Standard (63584) and is on track to become a BSI standard in the UK in the summer of 2025.
Chargepoints compatible with the ISO 15118 standard will be able to offer Plug & Charge, a similar zero touch experience but with enhanced security using encryption, digital signatures and public key infrastructure for additional protection for information about the EV, its owner and who pays for the charging and how.
The ISO 15118 compatible chargepoints, such as CTEK’s CC3, will not only enable Plug & Charge but will also unlock the other innovations governed by the standard, including bi-directional Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) and Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X), paving the way for smarter energy management.
UK energy providers are already trialling
smarter, more flexible tariffs to their EV owning customers. Combined with a smart chargepoint, owners can, for instance, charge when wholesale energy prices are low or when there is a large amount of renewable energy in the grid. We can expect to see more such tariffs launched, seeking the twin aims of cheaper charging for drivers and more efficient demand management for electricity generators and distributors. We can also expect more new EV models, some with greater range and some with the ability to charge at 300kW and higher. We can look forward to smarter fast and rapid charge points that will optimise charging for each car model’s unique charging curve, resulting in faster and more efficient charging even at higher SoC (State of Charge).
Access to and the cost of charging will continue to be off-putting to drivers who cannot install a chargepoint at home, such as apartment
dwellers. The UK Government’s various chargepoint installation grants are all scheduled to end on 31 March 2025. We hope for extensions to these schemes, or replacements, to continue to encourage the installation of additional chargepoints on the street, at rental properties and at workplaces.
It is more than two years since the Government stopped giving grants towards the cost of a new plug-in car and yet sales of both new BEVs and PHEVs grew in 2024. Could we see a return of purchase grants in 2025?
electricalengieneeringmagazine.co.uk
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • DECEMBER/JANUARY 2025 7
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