5 steps the energy market needs to take to be ready for more electric vehicles
By: Rajni Nair
Tags: Electric Car, Net Zero, Energy, Policy

Today, the government’s Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce published its final report. The report summarises work by almost 350 organisations, including Citizens Advice, all trying to ensure that the electricity system in Great Britain is ready for more electric vehicles.

Although electric cars make up only a small proportion of vehicles on the road, the government has targets to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2040. This will likely drive up ownership with many organisations predicting a significant increase over the next decade.

While organisations debate how fast electric car ownership will grow in the coming years, 1 thing is certain. If more people are buying electric vehicles, we’ll need an electricity system that is ready for all situations and works well.

Why does this matter to energy consumers?

More electric vehicles means we’ll need to invest in electricity generation and in the pipes and wires that carry it to people’s homes. Decisions about investment are crucial, not least because it’s all paid for by energy consumers: the costs of the pipes and wires to people’s homes is nearly 1/4 of your household energy bill.

There are already many different types of energy tariffs, offers and options for people to charge their cars. We anticipate there’ll be even more as the market develops, so it’s vital we get the right consumer protections and support in place now.

As the statutory consumer advocate for energy, Citizens Advice led the strand on consumer protection for the taskforce and agree with many of the recommendations it makes. But, there are 5 important next steps to be taken now the report has been published:

1. Tailor electric vehicle tariffs to the needs of consumers and make them available on price comparison websites

Energy companies recognise owning an electric vehicle may change how people use electricity as they begin to charge at home. Over the last few years, more energy suppliers have been offering tariffs specifically aimed at electric vehicle drivers and, in 2018, we reviewed this part of the market. While some are beneficial, as compared to non-electric vehicle tariffs, not all will be depending on customers’ driving and charging behaviour.

Back then, there were also consumer groups who missed out completely with no offers suitable for them. This included people with prepayment meters, people who didn’t pay monthly or had needs that meant charging between 4–7pm couldn’t be avoided.

Consumers tell us offers need to be tailored to their needs and that financial guarantees would give them the confidence to try the new and innovative ones.

We also need more electric vehicle tariffs on price comparison websites with tools to help people assess which one works best for them. This could go a long way, making the process of choosing a tariff much simpler.

2. Set standards for smart chargers and make them accessible to all

From July 2019, all grant funded chargers must be smart, meaning they are able to respond to signals like price or when there’s excess renewable energy available, automatically charging during these times. The government took powers last year to set minimum standards for them and will consult on those standards later in the year.

We agree with the taskforce that there should be minimum standards and that people should have a choice whether they use this smart functionality.

Important next steps will be to make sure smart chargers are easy to use, taking into account the needs of those who aren’t digitally confident — in the UK, 5.3 million adults are digitally excluded — and the needs of people with disabilities from the outset. We should learn lessons from other parts of industry. For example, only now is it possible to receive in-home displays for smart meters that are accessible to the blind or partially sighted.

Fundamentally, consumers need the right information at the point of purchase for these new technologies and should be given appropriate support in deciding what’s best for them, with access to independent advice if they need it.

3. Improve how complaints are handled, make it clear what this will look like and when new processes will be introduced

A growing number of companies are providing offers to consumers and how they are presenting those offers are changing. Car manufacturers and energy suppliers are partnering to trial new products and services, products and services are being bundled, chargepoint operators and smart chargers are managing when people use energy, and a household could soon have a separate energy supplier for their electric vehicle.

This blurring of lines between the energy, motor and tech industry adds complexity for consumers. It’s almost inevitable that people will have problems that need to be solved. But across these industries, consumer protection is inconsistent and uncoordinated. This could make it harder for people to know which company is responsible and what their rights are.

We agree industry should look at how it can work together better when handling complaints. What we want to see next is when this will happen, how this works in practice and how it can offer clarity to consumers in a complex market.

4. Improve the experience at public chargers, offering real commitments to drive this forward

One of the biggest barriers people face to buying an electric vehicle is that they expect the charging experience to be difficult. In actual fact, there’s far more chargers than many people recognise but the concentration varies with some regions falling behind others.

All drivers need to have fair access to public chargers, including accessible ones for people who are disabled. We’d expect the government to be thinking about this as they consider a charging infrastructure fit for the future.

The taskforce recommends industry moving towards roaming services. This should mean that people will be able to charge their vehicles at different public charge-points as easily as they’d take money out of differently branded cashpoints.

But we’re still missing some details. We need to see a commitment to consensus building that provides the technical details and enforcement to ensure every business comes along and adheres to standards.

5. Invest in our infrastructure, but only where necessary

To charge our cars, electricity needs to be transported through wires to our home via the electricity network. Network companies will therefore need to predict how much more network we need, where and when. This is admittedly a difficult task.

The answer cannot simply be to build more and thicker wires everywhere, although that will have to happen in some places. Instead, we want to see energy network companies become even more creative and efficiently use what we already have. Finding ways to overcome network constraints by using “demand side response”, energy efficiency and other new ways will be crucial to ensure that the network share of the energy bill stays as low as it can be.

While the taskforce has concluded, we’ll continue to work closely with many of the same organisations. We’ll want to monitor progress to ensure consumers are protected and that investments are made appropriately. And while our next steps must bring us closer to achieving net zero, for it to be done well, we’ll need to bring everyone along.