New house builds to have car chargers

[Rpp999]

From next year all house and office new builds in England to have electrical car chargers installed.

 

[markjay]

(Expecting oncoming )

 

[AMGeed]

Makes sense if we are going electric in future.

 

[Petrol Pete]

Really ??

We have all seen relatively new 'estates' being thrown up only to see the pavements/roads dug up a year or so later to install fibre optic cables etc. I do not know the answer but if a new housing estate is given planning permission it should be on the condition that two (or more) 50mm conduit pipes are run underground from the road into the house . They might spend the next 100 years redundant or they might just stop the road and pavement from being dug up to run a 12mm fiber optic cable in one day .

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Excellent news. If only all new houses and apartments could be built with double garages and driveways too !

Just a few questions:

What percentage of new homes even have parking spaces?

Presumably such chargers will all give Tesla charging speeds?

With young people abandoning car usage at an unparalleled rate, can these chargers be used to charge scooters and e-bikes?

 

[Dickster]

Just like heat pumps

 

[markjay]

Excellent news. If only all new houses and apartments could be built with double garages and driveways too !

Just a few questions:

What percentage of new homes even have parking spaces?

Presumably such chargers will all give Tesla charging speeds?

With young people abandoning car usage at an unparalleled rate, can these chargers be used to charge scooters and e-bikes?

View attachment 118214

As far as I know, in London at least, for the past 20 years developerd can't build new homes without also providing off-street parking (underground car parks for blocks of flights or high-rise buildings).

Some Councils will grant planning permission where no new parking is built, but only if the developers commit that the Leases say that the Leaseholders (and tenants) are not entitled to a Residents Parking Permit (in practical terms it means they can't have a car).

So I don't see an issue with the installation of charging points in new homes. If anything, the power supply to new developments will have to be calculated with all the chargers factored-in, which means we'll have ample time to prepare in advance for the increase of demand on the grid.

 

[markjay]

The other advantage is that with chargers at home, most people will slow-charge their cars at night, rather than use high-speed chargers during the day.

This is good news, because power plants can make electricity but can't store it, and one of their biggest headaches is dealing with peaks in demand. Allowing private cars to make use of the grid's spare capacity and slow-charge overnight will help optimise power production and distribution.

 

[st13phil]

So I don't see an issue with the installation if charging points in new homes. If anything, the power supply to new developments will have to be calculated with all the chargers factored-in, which means we'll have ample time to prepare in advance for the increase of demand on tbe grid.

I think that's a reasonable assumption to make, but in all likelihood economics will dictate that developers will default to the installation of lower power slower chargers which, I would suggest, will not meet expectations.

The much bigger issue is the requirement to upgrade existing power distribution infrastructure (not just generating capacity) to support the installation of chargers at existing developments. This guide for Local Authorities about planning for the installation of EV charge points published by Western Power Distribution gives some indication of likely issues: A guide on electric vehicle charging and DNO engagement for local authorities

It includes little nuggets that I wasn't aware of, such as the management of harmonic currents that can cause overheating of conductors, transformers and electronics in the distribution network. Their research has determined that the existing standard design of low voltage connections will permit the connection of one 32A electric vehicle charge point, while to overcome harmonic emission concerns a single 50kW (Rapid charger) would have to be installed within a range of 45 to 200m from the supplying substation. That rather suggests that the dream of there being a plethora of fast and rapid chargers outside people's houses will remain exactly that: a dream.

As far as street side provision goes, it notes that "Electricity connections for street lights were designed for a demand of around 50 watts and ‘fast charging’ has a rating of up to 7360 watts (32A) single phase. Therefore, even though the cut-out (fuse head) may have an item rating of 5750 watts / 25A single phase – the electrical infrastructure will most likely not permit the increased demand due to thermal overload of the ‘looped’ conductors and the voltage drop across the circuit."

Clearly these are not insurmountable problems, but the infrastructure upgrades will be very costly, disruptive (e.g. digging up roads and pavements) and clearly cannot happen overnight.

 

[markjay]

I think that's a reasonable assumption to make, but in all likelihood economics will dictate that developers will default to the installation of lower power slower chargers which, I would suggest, will not meet expectations.

The much bigger issue is the requirement to upgrade existing power distribution infrastructure (not just generating capacity) to support the installation of chargers at existing developments. This guide for Local Authorities about planning for the installation of EV charge points published by Western Power Distribution gives some indication of likely issues: A guide on electric vehicle charging and DNO engagement for local authorities

It includes little nuggets that I wasn't aware of, such as the management of harmonic currents that can cause overheating of conductors, transformers and electronics in the distribution network. Their research has determined that the existing standard design of low voltage connections will permit the connection of one 32A electric vehicle charge point, while to overcome harmonic emission concerns a single 50kW (Rapid charger) would have to be installed within a range of 45 to 200m from the supplying substation. That rather suggests that the dream of there being a plethora of fast and rapid chargers outside people's houses will remain exactly that: a dream.

As far as street side provision goes, it notes that "Electricity connections for street lights were designed for a demand of around 50 watts and ‘fast charging’ has a rating of up to 7360 watts (32A) single phase. Therefore, even though the cut-out (fuse head) may have an item rating of 5750 watts / 25A single phase – the electrical infrastructure will most likely not permit the increased demand due to thermal overload of the ‘looped’ conductors and the voltage drop across the circuit."

Clearly these are not insurmountable problems, but the infrastructure upgrades will be very costly, disruptive (e.g. digging up roads and pavements) and clearly cannot happen overnight.

The Ubitricity/ Siemens street chargers on the lampposts where I live are 5.5kW. They are located near residents parking bays. The idea is that people park their EV cars in the street overnight as they normally would, but connected to the lampposts for charging. Most city-dwelling EVs will only need to be charged once a week or every other week, so hopefully the lamppost charging solution still work fine once EVs become even more common.

It may well be the case that home chargers will have limited output for slow overnight charging, with 100-150kW chargers available in public locations in each area, and 350kW superchargers at motorway services.

This seems to me like a more sensible solution than everyone having 32kW chargers at home.

 

[Rpp999]

The government ran an initial consultation over plans for compulsory domestic charge points two years ago but the policy was delayed by a combination of the general election and the pandemic.


In the Commons, Rachel Maclean, the transport minister, confirmed today that a formal response to the consultation would be published shortly, adding: “We intend to lay legislation later this year.


“We have also confirmed our intention to mandate at-home and workplace electric vehicle chargers must be capable of smart charging.”


The original consultation had a promise to install charging points in “every new residential building with an associated car parking space”. Existing residential blocks with more than ten parking spaces would also have to install charging cables running into every car parking space whenever they undergo an upgrade. For office blocks, a new charging space will be required for every five parking spaces.

 

[st13phil]

Most city-dwelling EVs will only need to be charged once a week or every other week

With respect, there's a big wide world outside cities that is currently (no pun!) not well served with EV charging facilities and the economics for provision are probably every bit as flaky as that for rural broadband, and we know how the commercial world has rushed to provide that

My point about the fast and rapid chargers was that they need to be placed close to substations, which limits their placement options. Furthermore a small group of 20 rapid chargers (up to 140kVA each, let alone the next gen 350kWh super chargers) - as would be expected at a motorway services for example - has an incoming power requirement in the region of 1MVA. How any motorway services have that scale of incoming power capability? My guess is probably none, so there's much digging and cable laying and substation building to be done which doesn't appear to be happening.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

As far as I know, in London at least, for the past 20 years developerd can't build new homes without also providing off-street parking (underground car parks for blocks of flights or high-rise buildings).

Some Councils will grant planning permission where no new parking is built, but only if the developers commit that the Leases say that the Leaseholders (and tenants) are not entitled to a Residents Parking Permit (in practical terms it means they can't have a car).

So I don't see an issue with the installation of charging points in new homes. If anything, the power supply to new developments will have to be calculated with all the chargers factored-in, which means we'll have ample time to prepare in advance for the increase of demand on the grid.

After half a century of living in London, I can assure you that new homes haven't been required to build off-street parking during that time. See that photo of that Thames side building over Vauxhall bus garage above. No space for parking.

Parking helps with development plans in the 'Burbs, but not in the London postals.

It's simple economics. When a one bedroomed 500 square foot flat costs a million quid, it's a rare Mercedes owner that wants to shell out another £500k for a garage space.

And, out in the Suburbs - e.g. deepest Surbiton, an off-street parking space is too expensive for people spending less £750k on a two bedroomed flat, without parking

This is posturing legislation. Politicians waving at the door.

If people wanted chargers, house builders would put them in. Introducing yet more bureaucracy won't help.

And, as I said, you can be sure that technological change will make any current tech solution obsolete within ten years - especially around speed of charge. Within a decade Tesla-style supercharging could become the norm, and we might even see the long-overdue arrival of wireless charging solutions. I struggle to believe that women will be enthusiastically cabling up their cars every night, in cold and rain, when they return home

Once again, legislators are indulging in token politics - in the same way that they gave huge tax breaks to Accountants buying Californian manufactured Teslas. But it isn't really going to have any significant effect on CO2 in a country where people are deliberately buying cumbersome SUV's or doing serious mileages in cheap 10+ year old diesels, while daydreaming about their next Easyjet holiday to Spain, and wondering how long their old, inefficient gas boiler will last before it "has" to be replaced.

 

[Tonygw]

That's very true ST13phil, most of the UK ISNT a big city. I live in a small town in the midlands, the electricity network is fragile and ancient and ill equipt to deal with extra demand.
The new housing estates going up near me have shocking parking facilities, with very very limited drive way space or on street parking.

Charge points are few and far between, a couple of old ones at the local Asda is all we get. We also have a lot of terraced housing. very tight parking where residents rarely get to park outside their own home. Often on an adjacent street. How's that going to work for home charging?

There are 10-15 smaller villages around my area with ZERO public charge points.
Once you leave the more built up cities and main roads. the infrastructure is none existent.

 

[190]

It includes little nuggets that I wasn't aware of, such as the management of harmonic currents that can cause overheating of conductors, transformers and electronics in the distribution network. Their research has determined that the existing standard design of low voltage connections will permit the connection of one 32A electric vehicle charge point, while to overcome harmonic emission concerns a single 50kW (Rapid charger) would have to be installed within a range of 45 to 200m from the supplying substation. That rather suggests that the dream of there being a plethora of fast and rapid chargers outside people's houses will remain exactly that: a dream.

This is very interesting. The harmonics are caused by the electronic inverters that first increases the AC frequency before transforming it down and then rectifying to DC. It's like a switched mode laptop charger on a much bigger scale. Throw in the TT earthing requirement which will involve *driving earth rods into the ground and it's clear that charging points above 7Kw start to become expensive to install. 7kW or thereabouts is in any case the limit for single phase domestic chargers and I don't see that being changed by the directive to include chargers in new builds because a 3 phase supply would be needed which is both more expensive and more dangerous. It would be interesting to know the installed cable size used for street lighting as I can't see even 7kW being feasible using the existing cable infrastructure.

It seems to me the future is cheap but relatively slow charging at home and fast but expensive charging mid journey.

* driving earth rods and measuring the resistance of the earth is great fun which relies on the fact that while the earth is a poor conductor compared to copper it makes up for it by having near infinite cross sectional area. But it's not that simple as harmonics comes into earthing too and it's probably the reason for the local earthing requirement.

 

[m80]

Soon there will be legislation for residential landlords to install chargers for tenants that could never afford an EV.

 

[Tonygw]

With respect, there's a big wide world outside cities that is currently (no pun!) not well served with EV charging facilities and the economics for provision are probably every bit as flaky as that for rural broadband, and we know how the commercial world has rushed to provide that

My point about the fast and rapid chargers was that they need to be placed close to substations, which limits their placement options. Furthermore a small group of 20 rapid chargers (up to 140kVA each, let alone the next gen 350kWh super chargers) - as would be expected at a motorway services for example - has an incoming power requirement in the region of 1MVA. How any motorway services have that scale of incoming power capability? My guess is probably none, so there's much digging and cable laying and substation building to be done which doesn't appear to be happening.

This is very interesting. The harmonics are caused by the electronic inverters that first increases the AC frequency before transforming it down and then rectifying to DC. It's like a switched mode laptop charger on a much bigger scale. Throw in the TT earthing requirement which will involve *driving earth rods into the ground and it's clear that charging points above 7Kw start to become expensive to install. 7kW or thereabouts is in any case the limit for single phase domestic chargers and I don't see that being changed by the directive to include chargers in new builds because a 3 phase supply would be needed which is both more expensive and more dangerous. It would be interesting to know the installed cable size used for street lighting as I can't see even 7kW being feasible using the existing cable infrastructure.

It seems to me the future is cheap but relatively slow charging at home and fast but expensive charging mid journey.

* driving earth rods and measuring the resistance of the earth is great fun which relies on the fact that while the earth is a poor conductor compared to copper it makes up for it by having near infinite cross sectional area. But it's not that simple as harmonics comes into earthing too and it's probably the reason for the local earthing requirement.

I thought most oft he UK was a TN-C or TN-C-s system with a bond earth neutral, are you referring to the rural areas?
Harmonics is a major issue though if everybody has a Dc charger the AC - Dc inverter is going to generate quite some noise back onto the domestic mains system.. Fun times ahead..

As to lamp post charging, most are rated at 6A max, so some major cable upgrades are needed to safely pump out 7KW

 

[markjay]

After half a century of living in London, I can assure you that new homes haven't been required to build off-street parking during that time. See that photo of that Thames side building over Vauxhall bus garage above. No space for parking.

Parking helps with development plans in the 'Burbs, but not in the London postals.

It's simple economics. When a one bedroomed 500 square foot flat costs a million quid, it's a rare Mercedes owner that wants to shell out another £500k for a garage space.

And, out in the Suburbs - e.g. deepest Surbiton, an off-street parking space is too expensive for people spending less £750k on a two bedroomed flat, without parking

This is posturing legislation. Politicians waving at the door.

If people wanted chargers, house builders would put them in. Introducing yet more bureaucracy won't help.

And, as I said, you can be sure that technological change will make any current tech solution obsolete within ten years - especially around speed of charge. Within a decade Tesla-style supercharging could become the norm, and we might even see the long-overdue arrival of wireless charging solutions. I struggle to believe that women will be enthusiastically cabling up their cars every night, in cold and rain, when they return home

Once again, legislators are indulging in token politics - in the same way that they gave huge tax breaks to Accountants buying Californian manufactured Teslas. But it isn't really going to have any significant effect on CO2 in a country where people are deliberately buying cumbersome SUV's or doing serious mileages in cheap 10+ year old diesels, while daydreaming about their next Easyjet holiday to Spain, and wondering how long their old, inefficient gas boiler will last before it "has" to be replaced.





View attachment 118221

I can only repeat what I was told by Councils - Islington, Westminster, and Hackney.

In fact a colleague had his planing permission rejected by Hackney just last month, because of lack of parking spaces.

Of course this might not be the case for every Borough in London. Some of the suburbs probably have no issues with parking.

But I can tell you with certainty that those Councils I did speak to, were adamant that planning permission for new homes won't be granted without parking.

EDIT: the above only applies to residential developments, not to businesses or office buildings. In fact, I was told that non-residential properties are encouraged not to have parking (to stop workers from driving into Central London).

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I can only repeat what I was told by Councils - Islington, Westminster, and Hackney.

In fact a colleague had his planing permission rejected by Hackney just last month, because of lack of parking spaces.

Of course this might not be the case for every Borough in London. Some of the suburbs probably have no issues with parking.

But I can tell you with certainty that those Councils I did speak to, were adamant that planning permission for new homes won't be granted without parking.

EDIT: the above only applies to residential developments, not to businesses or office buildings. In fact, I was told that non-residential properties are encouraged not to have parking (to stop workers from driving into Central London).

Here's just one example of a Hackney new build development that doesn't have off-street parking. A quick surf around Primelocation will show you that new developments in Hackney don't have parking spaces.

I lived in Westminster in the 1990's. Even then, thirty years ago, it was unthinkable for new build homes to be required to have parking included. Too expensive. From memory it was something like half a million in 1990 to buy a new build two bed flat in Pimlico with under block parking - back in the day when £500k was a fair old chunk of change.

New build two bedroomed flat in Hackney - Check out this property for sale on PrimeLocation!

 

[Bellow]

The Ubitricity/ Siemens street chargers on the lampposts where I live are 5.5kW. They are located near residents parking bays. The idea is that people park their EV cars in the street overnight as they normally would, but connected to the lampposts for charging. Most city-dwelling EVs will only need to be charged once a week or every other week, so hopefully the lamppost charging solution still work fine once EVs become even more common.

I've already pointed out the required logistics to make that viable for a mere 33 cars is nigh on impossible.
Indulge in a little historical research MJ. Research back in the days before tumble driers and shared outdoor drying spaces were the norm with individual days allocated to each resident, just how much strife was created when someone used the facility on some one else's allocated day. It only needed one resident in a block of six flats to behave thus to throw the whole arrangement into fractious unworkable chaos.
Alternatively don't research that. Just wait until tumble driers are too expensive to use and watch what happens when the fighting over the outdoor drying space kicks in. Or the fighting over the EV charging point....