ELECTRIC VEHICLES/EV CHARGING
UNLOCKING EV’S
FORGOTTEN SECTOR
The EV Chargepoint Grant is not just encouraging renters and flat owners into EVs, it’s about the future shape of UK energy demand, says Sally Bailey, head of EV Charging Sales at Vestel Mobility UK
F
or years, home EV charging in the UK has been quietly shaped by a structural bias.
If you owned a house with a driveway, the economics worked beautifully. If you rented or owned a flat, the economics of electric motoring were often undermined by reliance on public charging, where costs can be up to ten times higher than the lowest EV-specific domestic tariffs. Around 36% of UK households are either privately
rented, socially rented, or leasehold flats. That imbalance has influenced EV adoption rates, shaped perceptions of electric vehicle affordability and, crucially, slowed the electrification of a large proportion of the UK’s vehicle fleet. The government’s EV Chargepoint Grant for renters and flat owners appears, at first glance, to be a consumer-facing initiative offering up to £350 off the installation of a home charger. In reality, it is a policy lever with far wider implications for the UK’s transport structure, energy system, property sector, and sustainability strategy. This is just not a story about helping tenants. It is a story about unlocking a third of the UK housing stock for meaningful participation in the green energy and transport transition. Insurmountable physical boundaries to EV charger installation aside, such as a complete lack of off-street or allocated parking, which can be up to 70% of homes in inner-urban areas, the grant could be applied to a very large number of households in the UK. By encouraging and enabling home charging in these properties, the grant begins to redistribute EV energy demand away from rapid chargers and motorway hubs and back into the domestic overnight load profile, where the grid is under-utilised and increasingly supplied by renewable generation.
THAT SHIFT MATTERS National Grid ESO data shows that overnight electricity demand can be up to 40% lower than early evening peak demand. At the same time, wind generation often peaks overnight, leading to curtailment events in which renewable energy is effectively wasted because demand
18
is too low. EV charging on off-peak tariffs, some as low as 7.5p per kWh, is not simply cheap for the driver. It is an efficient use of surplus renewable capacity that would otherwise go unused. From a sustainability perspective, this is
distributed energy optimisation at scale. The implications for the property sector are equally significant. Surveys from Direct Line, Zoopla and Vauxhall consistently show that landlords recognise EV charging as an asset that can increase property value, attract higher-quality tenants, and justify higher rents. Two in five landlords surveyed by Direct Line stated they would install charge points specifically to increase capital value, while similar numbers saw them as a tenant attraction tool. For housing associations, build-to-rent operators
and private landlords managing large portfolios, the grant lowers the barrier to future-proofing assets against an inevitable shift in transport behaviour. As EV adoption accelerates toward the 2035 ICE phase-out, properties without charging provision risk becoming functionally obsolete in the rental market. In this sense, the EV Chargepoint Grant is not
just a consumer subsidy, it can be considered an early warning to the rental property sector. There is also a fleet dimension to this grant that
is often overlooked. Many renters and flat owners are company car drivers or salary-sacrifice EV users. Without access to home charging, the total cost of ownership case for electric vehicles in these schemes is weakened, placing greater strain on public infrastructure and increasing operational costs for drivers. Enabling home charging for this group strengthens the economics of corporate fleet electrification and reduces reliance on expensive public networks. For the growing number of businesses pursuing Scope 3 emissions reductions through fleet transition, this matters directly. Scope 3 emissions are the indirect greenhouse gases created across a company’s wider value chain, rather than from its own buildings or energy use. For many organisations, employee commuting and company
Sally Bailey ENERGY & SUSTAINABILITY SOLUTIONS - Spring 2026
car travel sit squarely in this category, meaning the ability for staff to charge EVs cheaply, conveniently and efficiently at home has a measurable impact on reported Scope 3 totals and the credibility of fleet electrification strategies.
PRACTICALITIES As EV numbers rise beyond the current 1.1 million on UK roads and toward the projected 10 million by 2030, where and how those vehicles charge will have a measurable impact on grid behaviour, renewable utilisation, and infrastructure investment requirements. If a third of those vehicles are forced into public charging because their homes cannot support chargers, the UK must build vastly more rapid- charging infrastructure, along with associated grid reinforcement, land-use impacts, and capital costs. Moreover, most public charging occurs during peak working hours, when the grid is heavily reliant on non-renewable energy. If they charge at home overnight, using cheap, renewable-heavy electricity, the energy system works with them rather than against them. Seen through this lens, the EV Chargepoint Grant is a small policy change with systemic consequences for energy, sustainability and transport. It helps level the playing field for drivers, but more importantly, it helps level the load profile for the grid, future-proofs housing stock, and supports corporate and national sustainability targets. Of course, the plan to offer home-charging
benefits to the entire rental and flat market is not without its challenges. While 36% of UK households are flats or private rentals, the proportion that could physically support home EV charging today is closer to 23% once the reality of off-street parking is factored in. While the EV Chargepoint grant is a leap in the right direction, wider on- street and communal charging strategies remain essential to UK electrification. Yet for the remaining 23% of UK homes that are rented or flats and do have off-street parking, the grant is about engaging a previously excluded segment of the housing market into the energy transition. For the two-thirds of renters and flat owners who do have off-street parking, the grant is certainly helping make the UK’s electrification journey more efficient.
Vestel Mobility UK
www.vestel-mobility.co.uk
www.essmag.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40
