Troubled electric car charging scheme gets a boost

An electric car charging point. Photograph: Frank Hebbert (Creative Commons)

The borough’s troubled running of electric vehicle (EV) charging bays has been handed over to a private contractor after Hackney Council reported a “high level of outage and failures” at its 16 charging points.

As part of a revised contract, the council hopes to earn an estimated £12,000 per year in fees charged to the new operator, BluePoint London (BPL), a subsidiary of the French investment giant Bolloré Group.

The bays were installed as part of Source London, a network of electric vehicle charging points in London launched with Transport for London (TfL) by Mayor Boris Johnson in 2011.

TfL pulled out of the scheme last year and put it out to tender due to “high levels of dissatisfaction”. Pending the new agreement, maintenance for existing bays has been left to the bays’ owners – in this case Hackney Council.

Outages

Across London, up to 30 per cent of Source London’s charging points are currently out of service.

Electric car owner Vivienne O’Brien, told the Hackney Citizen that many charging bays in Hackney are continually out of service, or are so busy they are rarely available for use. “Never once in one and a half years have I been able to access the Clissold Crescent charging point,” she said.

“I have contacted Source London more than once about the outage, but have found it continually out of use.”

Public charging points are the only way to power up an electric car unless you have your own charging bay, which requires a driveway.

“I don’t know how people would manage without their own charging point” O’Brien adds, who says that currently, charging point schemes are too limited to be useful.

BluePoint have said they will expand the pan-London scheme by some 6,000 charge points by 2018.

‘Financial burden’

At the moment, Hackney Council pay an estimated £5,000 per year in electricity costs from the charging points, which are free at the point of use for members who pay a £5 annual membership fee.

A council report on the new agreement said that it can no longer shoulder the “financial burden”.

The report stated: “As usage has continued to increase, this is no longer considered financially sustainable.”

Hackney’s existing 16 charging points, said to be of little value, have been handed over to BPL at no cost. Hackney will be paid an annual fee for each bay plus an additional fee based on a 20 per cent share of BPL’s year-end profit.

Hackney was given the option to sign the new agreement alongside 23 other London boroughs which signed up to the TfL scheme. BluePoint London will take over responsibility for maintenance, data management and electricity bills.