In this webinar, Sivapriya Mothilal Bhagavathy (Priya) and Esther Dudek will talk about electric vehicles (EVs), charging them, and the effect of this on the electricity network. Helen Gavin will host the webinar.

This webinar is organised by the Oxford Martin Programme on Integrating Renewable Energy and will take place via Zoom. Please register for the event on Eventbrite to receive joining instructions.

Priya will be speaking on a project called Park & Charge that focuses on Oxfordshire. Oxford suffers from poor air quality and the council is keen for residents to use electric vehicles to help reduce air pollution. Further a Zero Emission Zone is planned for implementation in 2020.

However, what options exist for people who would like to own an electric car but do not have a suitable space on their property to charge it, like a driveway? Oxfordshire has a high percentage of residents with limited access to parking. Without a dedicated space to park and charge, prospective EV owners face potential problems which can be a large barrier to uptake. Park & Charge project is a demonstration project that aims to develop a readily scalable and commercially feasible business model to provide accessible chargers for potential EV users with no access to home charging with minimal disruption to the public. As a part of this project, around 300 chargers would be installed across Oxfordshire.

However, for those EV owners with off road space to park and charge, what effect might that have on local electricity networks? The number of electric vehicles are increasing. Charging these EVs could have an impact on the network if not done smartly.

Esther will focus on domestic charging for people with off-street parking, and outline the aims and key learnings from the original Electric Nation project. Electric Nation was a two-year field trial of smart charging involving approximately 700 drivers who charged at home, across the Midlands, South West England and South Wales.

The project looked to see how smart charging could help to move demand for electric vehicle charging away from peak times thus mitigating any possible excessive demand. Six versions of smart charging systems were evaluated for both technical feasibility and customer acceptability. In her presentation Esther will summarise the findings of the project on charging behaviour, acceptability of smart charging, and the impact of time-of-use rewards to change charging behaviour.