Recommendation 18

HM Government Acknowledged

The Government partially accepts these recommendations. We are confident the electricity system can accommodate the increased demand from electric vehicles, through the robust processes in place for bringing forward new generation and network upgrades. In order to reduce the need for new capacity and therefore costs for consumers, Government agrees that consumers should be incentivised to charge at times of low electricity demand, and that price will play an important role in driving this consumer behaviour. Whilst it is not our current intention to mandate that industry must deliver both of these recommendations in full, Government is taking several steps to achieve a similar outcome. Government welcomes the Committee’s support for our intention to mandate that private chargepoints must be smart. Government has committed to bringing forward legislation in Autumn 2021 which will mandate smart functionality for all new home and workplace EV chargepoints sold in Great Britain. The legislation will also include a requirement for chargepoints to be pre-set to charge at off peak times by default. However, consumers are able to change or override the smart charging function to charge when they need to at any time. This default setting will be an important way of encouraging consumers to charge at times of low demand. In addition to ensuring that chargepoints have the necessary functionality to facilitate smart charging, price signals should incentivise consumers to smart charge – for example, by offeringcheaper electricity at off-peak periods, with some industry estimates suggesting that consumers could save £230 a year simply by charging their car off-peak. The Government is encouraging industry to bring forward more smart electricity tariffs, and we expect that the introduction of market-wide half-hourly settlement in the mid- 2020s will act as a significant incentive for suppliers to do so. The Government is also working to ensure that EV owners can access trusted information about the benefits of smart charging. We are already working with the Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce and industry stakeholders to improve consumers’ access to information and advice on smart charging, including on how to set up and use products in a way that suits their needs All publications from the Committee are available on the publications page of the Committee’s website.