Liberty Charge has chosen the public sector and local government event Solace Summit to launch as a Charge Point Operator (CPO), committed to improving the supply of easily accessible on-street charging in the UK.
With 40% of the UK’s urban residents having no access to off-street charging on a private driveway, Liberty Charge is aiming to provide fully-funded on-street charging facilities – also known as ‘base’ charging – to help Councils meet a clear public need and support their local sustainability and clean air targets.
Working in partnership with local authorities, Liberty Charge will take on the ownership and cost of running and maintaining the EV charging points, as well as the supporting infrastructure on which they rely.
In collaboration with its delivery partner, Virgin Media O2, it will roll out an initial 500 electric vehicle chargers across five UK local authorities by the end of 2021. The initial rollout will include the London boroughs of Croydon, Hammersmith & Fulham and Wandsworth. It will also include West and North Northamptonshire Councils, to improve on-street charging provision outside the capital.
Currently, there are around 6,000 on-street charge points across the UK, many of which are in London, with far fewer outside the capital. Liberty Charge will be focused on accelerating this rollout in a bid to help meet one of the Government’s net zero goals of installing more than 120,000 EV charge points by 2025.
This will also help accelerate the UK’s transition from fossil fuel powered vehicles to electric vehicles, as the Government works to phase out the sale of combustion powered cars by 2030. There are currently more than 25,000 charging devices across the UK.
Recent months have seen CPOs taking an increased interest in ‘base’ charging, with projects from Connected Kerb coming to fruition as well as on-street provide char.gy signing up to Zap-Pay.
“Local authority budgets are already under pressure and they often lack the capital expenditure to undertake such an investment,” said Neil Isaacson, CEO at Liberty Charge.
“By providing a fully-funded, reliable and convenient on-street solution, we can help local authorities make this national target a reality.”
According to Isaacson, there are currently 11 million UK households with no driveway and no way of charging their vehicle off-street.
“With our strategy, and the support of our delivery partner, we can plug a huge gap in the market,” he concluded.
Liberty Charge announced the successful completion of its first UK installation in the London borough of Waltham Forest in April this year.
A joint venture created by Liberty Global and Zouk Capital to rollout on-street charging points in the UK, Liberty Charge leverages Liberty Global UK subsidiary, Virgin Media’s network infrastructure, deployment capabilities and trusted relationships with local authorities. Zouk is the manager of the Charging Infrastructure Investment Fund (CIIF), the dedicated fund established by the UK Government in 2019 and backed by HM Treasury to help develop public charging networks for electric vehicles throughout the UK.