EV charging regulation – what is on the horizon?

The government’s recent Autumn Budget continued positive signals for EV adoption in the UK, with increased funding for plug-in vehicle grant schemes and public charging infrastructure. Perhaps overlooked are regulatory changes which are in development or are imminently coming into force. This article highlights one key public charging regulation and one upcoming Distribution Connection and Use of System Agreement (“DCUSA”) modification in development.

Next phase of public charging regulation 

The Public Charge Point Regulations 2023  (the “Regulations”) were implemented on 24 November 2023, however key obligations under the Regulations are effective from 24 November 2024.

The Regulations apply to Charge Point Operators (“CPOs”) who facilitate EV charging to the general public, with the aim of ensuring that the experience of consumers using public charge points across the UK is consistent and positive. The obligations which are effective from 24 November 2024 include:

• Contactless payments: All new public charge points 8kW and above deployed after 24 November 2024 and all public charge points of 50kW and above must offer contactless payments either per public charge point or, if there is more than one public charge point, per charging site.
• Reliability standards: CPOs must ensure rapid charge points (charge points over 50 kW) maintain 99% availability, measured as an average across the CPO’s rapid network over the calendar year. CPOs must also publish information on reliability compliance on their websites and submit an annual reliability report to the Secretary of State and the Office for Product Safety and Standards as the Regulations’ enforcement body.
• Helpline support: CPOs must make available a free to use 24/7 staffed telephone helpline and advertise the helpline at all charge points.
• Open data requirements: CPOs must hold all data about their public charge points accurately and use the Open Charge Point Interface to hold and open their data. Government bodies, distribution network operators (“DNOs”), transmission owners and electricity system operators must also have access to all data.

Further information can be found in the government guidance to the Regulations.

Targeted relief from residual charges for EV charging sites

DCUSA modification DCP-420 proposes to expand the definition of ‘Non-Final Demand’ in the DCUSA to include non-domestic sites which are connected solely for the purposes of charging EVs where the electricity is being sold under a commercial transaction to a private user.

This is to address the issue that currently non-domestic charging stations such as council run services, car parks, service stations, forecourts etc. attract residual charges. Residual charges in this context are charges levied by DNOs against smaller users (based on their consumption) to recover the fixed costs of the distribution network.

By virtue of not being carved out under the DCUSA definition of ‘Non-Final Demand’, these types of non-domestic charging stations are currently captured under the definition of ‘Final Demand’: “electricity which is consumed other than for the purposes of generation or export onto the electricity network” and so attract residual charges. The DCUSA modification is currently at working group stage with a targeted implementation date of 6 November 2025.