Infrastructure planning part 2: Influence of housing stock on residential EV charging

Matching EV charging infrastructure to customer demand is a pre-requisite to developing a sustainable and commercially viable strategy for local authorities and nationally. In this blog post we will further finesse sociodemographic segmentation in the context of housing to find the best locations for public residential EV charging points in the city of Coventry.

On-street residential charging
Sociodemographic segmentation helped us identify where residential charging is likely to occur. While some of the charging demand can be satisfied on private driveways and parking locations, a significant proportion of EV drivers will depend on public EV charging infrastructure.

In this next step, we consider the density of terrace housing to refine the EV charging demand requirements for on-street residential charging in the geospatial context of Coventry’s sociodemographic segmentation.

Figure 1 Residential housing density reliant on public EV charging infrastructure.

Figure 1 illustrates the geospatial density of residential housing that likely incurs EV charging demand reliant on public charging infrastructure.  For public on-street charging to be sustainable and commercially viable it needs to be in areas that are shaded in dark green. Any public on-street charging infrastructure located outside these areas is likely to be sub-optimal and potentially at risk of obsolescence.

Satisfying EV demand
Refining the sociodemographic segmentation in the context of housing stock, Figure 2 illustrates that early EV adopters do not rely on residential on-street charging. From a forecasting perspective, there is significant latent demand that will rely on public on-street charging infrastructure in areas that are rendered in green.

Figure 2 Public on-street charging demand in the residential geospatial sociodemographic segmentation context.

This is a significant step in validating where public residential charging points might be deployed as well as assessing existing charging points for their performance potential. This is highly relevant for justifying the required private or public investment needed as well as appropriate use of electricity distribution assets. It also characterises charging locations private and public that due to long duration vehicle stay can be leveraged for advanced energy services such as V2X.

EV Infrastructure performance assessment
In order to deliver an EV charging infrastructure that is right for the UK and viable as a commercial business, an evidence-based approach is needed using quantifiable performance criteria.

Using Coventry as an example, based on housing type, up to 43% of residential EV charging in the selected sociodemographic placement area will depend on public charging infrastructure. Utilisation of the installed EV charging infrastructure in optimal target locations and the associated distribution grid capacity is low, averaging 2.7%; but has potential to increase over time as identified latent demand realises. EV charging infrastructure currently in sub-optimal locations amounts to 7.38MW installed charging power with utilisation close to 0%, presenting poor investment decisions and use of distribution grid assets.

Conclusion
Sociodemographic segmentation in the context of housing is an important aspect in identifying areas of current and future residential EV charging demand. The deployment of public EV charging infrastructure needs to be validated to ensure it is fit for purpose and deployed in locations where it can satisfy significant charging demand, making good use of the capacity of the electricity distribution network that is shared with all households.  

In our next blog, we will introduce a local authority league table for the provisioning of residential on-street EV charging infrastructure that will provide a structured and comparable approach for England and Wales and a stepping stone towards a sustainable and commercially viable charging infrastructure in the UK.