Legislating the electric vehicle revolution

This week the Govt announced a mandate to building regulations coming in 2022 to ensure the delivery of hundreds of thousands of electric vehicle charging points being installed.

Currently an average of 500 plug-in points are being installed every month so this announcement has been made to drastically increase this charging network.

All new or major renovations to homes, supermarkets and the workplace in England will require the installation of electric vehicle charging points. It should therefore be considered for designers to also have a technical knowledge of electric vehicle charging point installations, such as the City and Guilds 2919.

The commitment to end the sale of petrol and diesel cars in the UK by 2030 means electric vehicles and thus electric vehicle charging points will need to become a manadatory component to any electrical installation moving forward.

Electric vehicle charging point installations suffered tough scrutiny after Rachel Maclean, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Tansport (DfT) issued a letter to all authorised electric vehicle charging point installers signed up to the OLEZ scheme. The report showed evidence of unsafe electrical installations, many examples of non-compliance and asked for a shake up.

At the time of writing this though the training standards have not improved and neither has the guidance available, even the manufacturers of charging points use different protection methods which may result in different requirements for earthing systems on the fixed electrical installation.

This is unfortunatley going to look like another boom in installation opportunities to meet Govt targets and incentives without having developed a proficient combination of competent manufacturing, and installation of electric vehicle charging points.