Sponsored Content
In his latest column focusing on electric vehicles, Daniel Hawkes, energy solutions officer at Jersey Electricity, takes a look at the company’s investment in the Evolve network
REGULAR readers of this column may remember that previous articles have included some teasers about enhancements to the Evolve public charging network.
In the same columns, I have touched on the ever-changing technology coming onto the market and rising uptake in electric vehicles, which are driving these changes.
Well, now the teasing is over. Recently, Jersey Electricity announced that it was going to invest £600,000 in the Evolve network. But why are we doing this now? At first glance, such an investment may not seem necessary.
After all, Jersey already has more than twice the density of chargers per 100,000 of population than in the UK, with 109 network points across the Island. However, we believe that this upgrade is timely, as we see more and more people switching to low-carbon transport and anticipate that demand in this area will only continue to grow in the months and years ahead, as the choice of EVs on the market becomes ever greater and more financial incentives to make the switch are introduced.
The investment is also central to JE’s vision of a zero-carbon future. We know that road transport accounts for around a third of the Island’s carbon emissions and so reducing our reliance on traditional petrol and diesel vehicles is a critical element of the government’s Carbon Neutral Roadmap.
But what does this investment mean? And when will EV drivers notice the difference?
The improvements across the network will be significant and are designed not only to cater for the needs of EV drivers today but also in the future. After all, we know that in March this year, UK new registrations of EVs were 18% up on the same month last year. And that was not a one-off. In fact, March was the eighth consecutive month of year-on-year growth, with nearly 500,000 new EVs registered across the country in the first three months of 2023.
We have no reason to believe that this trend will change and, with Jersey’s government having recently announced plans for a subsidy to support people to buy EVs, demand for quick and efficient charging solutions is only likely to grow here in Jersey too.
As a result, the market-leading technology which we have already started rolling out across the Evolve network will future-proof the service. Implementing this technology now will also us give us greater flexibility to make further enhancements in the months and years to come, ensuring that we continue to give motorists the most convenient and cost-effective charging solutions across our public networks and home chargers.
That focus on cost-efficiency is important. While I cannot deny that the initial investment in a new EV is still significant, the prices of second-hand vehicles are still falling and the running costs are considerably lower than those of a petrol or diesel car. Indeed, at the moment, running an EV is less than a quarter of the cost of fuelling a petrol car on a per-mile basis, and we want to keep it that way.
We also recognise that Islanders like to take their cars abroad and that many UK and European visitors bring their vehicles to Jersey. The new technology will make it easier for Islanders to access international public-charging networks and also support visitors charging their vehicles in the Island. Roaming is not just for mobile phones.
As you can imagine, rolling out a new technology across 109 charge points will take some time. However, preparation work is already under way and, over the next six months, the differences will become apparent.
You can also keep up to date with the progress at evolve.je, where our team will be posting regular updates.
