With sales of battery-electric vehicles growing exponentially, the British government approved a new law requiring all new homes and buildings in the country have electric vehicle chargers starting in 2022.
Commercial buildings, such as workplaces and supermarkets, that undergo major renovations will also have to comply with the law. Britain already has regulations in place that will phase out sales of new vehicles using internal combustion engines by 2035.
Several communities in the U.S. have been considering EV charger requirements. In the meantime, changes recently made to the American building code will require that new homes be “EV ready,” with 240-volt circuitry that can be readily accessed for the installation of EV chargers.
“This is a pivotal moment. We cannot go on as we are,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said at a British industrial conference on Monday. “We have to adapt our economy to the green industrial revolution.”
Surging sales
Britain has seen a rapid increase in sales of battery-electric vehicles this past year — demand buoyed, at least in part, by shortages of gasoline that left many motorists with dry tanks in September. All told, UK motorists purchased 5,000 fewer BEVs that month than they did in all of 2019. All-electric models accounted for 15.2% of the British market in September. That’s up from 2.5% for all of 2018, and 10% last year.
“Up to 145,000 extra charge points will be installed across England each year thanks to these regulations, in the run up to 2030 when the sale of new petrol and diesel cars will end in the UK. This builds on the over 250,000 home and workplace charge points the government has already supported to date,” the British government said on its website.
Johnson late last year signed legislation that will ban the sale of vehicles running solely on internal combustion engines as of 2030. Conventional and plug-in hybrids will continue to be sold through 2035, when only BEVs will be allowed on the UK market.
Several British car brands have already laid out plans to go entirely electric. That includes the Jaguar side of Jaguar Land Rover, as well as Volkswagen’s UK-based Bentley. Ford has plans to go all-electric in Europe by 2030 and a number of other automakers, including Volvo, have laid out similar strategies.
A lack of places to plug in
The challenge is coming up with places to charge up all the vehicles entering the British fleet. According to the Competition and Markets Authority, there are 25,000 places to plug in today but that must grow as much as tenfold by 2030.
Under the new law, all new homes built in the UK will need to have at least one “smart” charger. They will have to be capable of turning on during off-peak time periods when demand on the British electric grid is lowest.
Other buildings will also have to begin installing chargers. Office buildings, for example, need at least one for every five parking spaces.
“Flexible charging at home and at workplace during the day is going to be crucial to decarbonizing not just transport but the UK’s entire energy system,” Nigel Pocklington, CEO of clean energy company Good Energy, told website Business Green. “As will better energy efficiency, electrified heating and solar power on 13.5 million homes — we hope to see all these as part of the plans for new homes, too.”
New U.S. building codes will help
There has been talk of enacting similar rules in several U.S. communities, including Santa Monica, California, though such regulations have yet to be put in place. But new guidelines approved under the International Code Council approved last year, come close. The standards — which are followed by most U.S. municipalities — require that new homes be made “EV-ready.”
That will mandate the necessary, 240-volt wiring is in place. But owners will still have to purchase their chargers and pay for the final hookup. Still, the move should simplify the process and lower overall consumer costs.
As with Great Britain, experts also see the need for a substantially larger U.S. public charging network. Under the $1.2 trillion Biden infrastructure plan approved this month the goal is to have 500,000 charger points in place by 2030.