The electric vehicle (EV) is finding real traction both in the UK and across the globe. However, a serious issue remains – the limited number of EV charging points. Is it possible that the humble street lamp could hold the answer?
The UK’s charging infrastructure is often citied as one of the biggest bottlenecks to mass electric vehicle adoption – it simply isn’t expansive or convenient enough for most EV drivers. Factor in differing socket types, reliability and availability and you have an issue that is in urgent need of addressing.
Figures show that electric cars past the two-million mark globally, with sales increasing by a massive 60% in 2016 alone thanks to new models and lower prices in showrooms. In the UK, plug-in car sales recently hit 100,000.
UK EVs are supported by a network of public charge points in more than 4,000 locations, according to vehicle-charging website zap-map.com. However, that’s not enough to keep up with expected demand over the coming years. Enter German company Ubitricity, which has come up with an ingenious solution to the problem – installing a socket that EV drivers can plug a bespoke charging cable into on the 7.5 million street lamps across the UK .
Put a socket on it
The process is simple enough – the local council pays the company to swap out a street lamp’s existing panel and retrofit it with a socket and cover. The process takes a mere 30 minutes before the street lamp is ready to be used. EV drivers then purchase the smart charging cable that connects their vehicle to the lamp post. The cable features technology that monitors and uploads all pertinent metering and billing information.
The cable costs £50 and can also be used on standard sockets, bypassing Ubitricity altogether if necessary. Subscribers should expect to pay roughly 15 pence per kilowatt hour and a 9 pence plug-in charge, plus a monthly fee for the service. The only concerns are the potential security issues, where someone could steal the cable when in use or simply remove it from the EV being charged and plug it into their own.
Despite such concerns, the technology has genuine appeal to councils. Installing a traditional public charging point is believed to cost around £6,000, while the lamp-based tech costs a mere £1,000. Better still, the council can get help covering installation costs by taking advantage of the £2.5 million on offer through the Office for Low Emissions Vehicles’ On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme.
Dealing with pollution head-on
Perhaps most importantly, the street lamp technology is seen as a valid way to drive down pollution in cities. Peter Buckwell, Richmond Council Cabinet member for highways, commented in an interview with the International Business Times,
“Poor air quality is one of the biggest issues facing London. We need to do everything we can to cut vehicle emissions… I hope that as we continue to roll out more charging points, even more residents will start buying electric cars. They aren’t just good for the environment, they are also good for the pocket.”
Richmond isn’t alone; several London boroughs are already adopting the unique charging system. For instance, Hounslow Council has already installed 26 charge points in a trial and expects to have 75 charge points rolled out by the middle of 2019. Only time will tell how far the scheme eventually spreads across the UK, but with such a simple and cost effective solution, don’t be surprised to see the technology appear in a street lamp near you before too long.
Would you take the plunge and plug your EV into a street lamp? Or do you have concerns about the technology? Let us know your thoughts below.
Photo Credit: Photo on Pixabay
I can imagine this would help solve the issue in some places, but I’d have thought it would be impractical in many residential areas, as to use it your car would have to block someone else’s driveway.
I guess you only adapt lampposts that arent going to cause that problem!
I’m not aware that there are that many lampposts located in the middle of people’s driveways! 🙂
It would make sense to have a specially marked parking bay alongside each of these lampposts marked “Electric Vehicles Only” to maximise the chance of being able to make use of them.
The perceived problem of people stealing the cables could be overcome very simply by keying each one to a PIN known only to the user. These are obviously ‘intelligent’ cables as they allow the company to organise the billing, so securing them with a PIN would mean stealing one would be pointless, as it wouldn’t work if you didn’t know the PIN.
Unfortunately once the low life who steals your cable finds out it has no value, they are not likely to return it.
Parking spaces marked ‘Electric vehicles only’ would not stop the “inconsiderate” as can be easily seen at any supermarket with disabled or parent and child parking bays.
No everyone has a driveway…or a garage….
NOT rather !!!!
There is the problem of supply capacity at each streetlight. The cable feeding the lighting columns will only be sized to carry the current needed for a line of streetlights – even the large old-fashioned main road lights only took 1 amp each – modern LED lights only take one eighth to one quarter of an amp each. So the streetlight will only have a 6 amp fuse and cut-out.
This would be useless for charging an electric vehicle which needs at least a 32 amp supply, or 63 amp for a fast charger. Perhaps in some places streetlights were provided with a full sized domestic supply of 60 amps or even 100 amps, but I somehow doubt that the extra expense would have been acceptable to most, if not all, local authorities.
Great idea, already adopted, I believe in one London borough. The points would only be fitted in appropriate places, not to cause obstruction and secure. When you charge an ‘e’ car, the lead is locked into the vehicle. Of course, someone could cut it with insulated snips, but little point really, as the lead [in this case] would be unique and therefore of no value – even for scrap it would only be a couple of coppers! Fully electrically operated vehicles will be the norm in our lifetimes and considering the cheapness of running these vehicle’s, it is a no brainer. The only thing holding back the full flow of these vehicle’s is the oil industry as their sale of fuel will diminish exponentially. Exhausts contribute chronic pollution and lowering of quality of life and longevity. It is a pity there are not more concessions for hybrid and ‘e’ vehicles to promote the growth of same. Free parking, free charging, maybe even a cash sum equivalent tot he amount of miles these vehicle’s travel for the first 5 years?
EV’s are still far too expensive & the range for most is pathetic unless you are living in a city with a small daily mileage. There is also the worry that you are going to run out of charge & then what would you do go & get a canful of electricity from somewhere? Not practical! The hysteria over diesel pollution from modern diesel cars is grossly exaggerated & modern diesel cars are still the most economical & cleanest type of propulsion around & will be for a long time yet. It’s commercial vehicles that are the nigger in the woodpile with older lorries, buses, trains, etc that are the greatest polluters so if more energy were put into cleaning these up it would be far more beneficial to the environment when the cost of producing the batteries, the electricity etc were taken into account . We have a modern Skoda Yeti with the latest Euro 6 engine that injects Adblue into the exhaust & you can smell nothing from the exhaust that is emitted & no worries over the range either. I understand that all modern buses/lorries etc are also using this technology. Can you really see these vehicles converting to running on battery power any time soon!? A lot of hysteria promoted by the silly little green party & the media who have jumped on the band wagon in my opinion.
The Leaf is around 7k used or 20k new with a reasonable but not great range of 80-120miles per charge depending on model. It won’t suite everyone but it’s a viable option for a lot of people.
more stationary cars to cause more congestion on our over crowed roads if this happens
To have a pipe or cable over a footway or carriageway is an offence under Highway legislation and carries a substantial fine.
Whats all this about FREE charging ??? Just how much does it cost to charge a car ? Cables/parking at the chargepoint ….. You can see the cost of fuel at the garage forecourt , but never seen the recharge price openly quoted . I prefer my 2.0l diesel at 50 mpg . Can I find miles per Kw anywhere please ?
About £3 to charge so that works out at about 2p a mile.
I could be wrong but I think it’s just under 5 miles per kwh but that’s a very rough estimate.
Bought an Auris Hybrid at the beginning of the year. Does the job well, without having to find a charging point. I find that driving normaly works well. Dont try to “force” the cat to drive on the battery unless it wants to. Got to admit I was lucky to get in before the Tax change.
More than 50% of pollution in cities is caused by busses, taxis and other public service vehicles (Dustcarts etc.). We used to have trolley busses, which were zero pollution but had a problem with overhead wires and moving the collector arm when they went round corners.
Using a battery / electric system. The bus could be recharged or run on straight sections, only requiring the battery at junctions. The arm could be engaged automatically. The wires would be encased and therefore insulated , apart from the slit below, (like an overhead crane supply) and would be hung off the street lamps. This would be much more aesthetically pleasing than the forest of wires of the traditional trolley bus.
Taxis could be battery driven with quick recharge in cab ranks. Other utility vehicles could use swap batteries, every time they went back to the depot. Rubbish could be removed by conveyor. There have been one or two pilot schemes.
The ultimate is to redesign the city to have compulsory park and ride, keeping all vehicles out of the centre. People pods (like Heathrow terminal 5) would take you to your destination, or the tube station. Pedestrians would occupy the highest level, with covered areas for inclement weather. Lower levels would house service vehicles, delivery vehicles, electricity sewage etc and the aforementioned pods.
If the government took back control of the Hydro Electricity. Instead of putting excess electricity to earth every night, it could be used to power cars at night.
Well my street has ZERO lampposts on it, the two lights we do have are attached to the side of houses & with the amount of cars parked on the road, half up on the foot paths, double parked & sometimes TRIPLE parked as theres so bloomin many of them, not to mention the commercial vans as well (why some people need three cars is beyond me) there would be constant fights over who gets to use the charging points, no driveways, or garages round here either.
I can imagine this would help solve the issue in some places, but I’d have thought it would be impractical in many residential areas, as to use it your car would have to block someone else’s driveway.
I guess you only adapt lampposts that arent going to cause that problem!
I’m not aware that there are that many lampposts located in the middle of people’s driveways! 🙂
It would make sense to have a specially marked parking bay alongside each of these lampposts marked “Electric Vehicles Only” to maximise the chance of being able to make use of them.
The perceived problem of people stealing the cables could be overcome very simply by keying each one to a PIN known only to the user. These are obviously ‘intelligent’ cables as they allow the company to organise the billing, so securing them with a PIN would mean stealing one would be pointless, as it wouldn’t work if you didn’t know the PIN.
Unfortunately once the low life who steals your cable finds out it has no value, they are not likely to return it.
Parking spaces marked ‘Electric vehicles only’ would not stop the “inconsiderate” as can be easily seen at any supermarket with disabled or parent and child parking bays.
No everyone has a driveway…or a garage….
NOT rather !!!!
There is the problem of supply capacity at each streetlight. The cable feeding the lighting columns will only be sized to carry the current needed for a line of streetlights – even the large old-fashioned main road lights only took 1 amp each – modern LED lights only take one eighth to one quarter of an amp each. So the streetlight will only have a 6 amp fuse and cut-out.
This would be useless for charging an electric vehicle which needs at least a 32 amp supply, or 63 amp for a fast charger. Perhaps in some places streetlights were provided with a full sized domestic supply of 60 amps or even 100 amps, but I somehow doubt that the extra expense would have been acceptable to most, if not all, local authorities.
Great idea, already adopted, I believe in one London borough. The points would only be fitted in appropriate places, not to cause obstruction and secure. When you charge an ‘e’ car, the lead is locked into the vehicle. Of course, someone could cut it with insulated snips, but little point really, as the lead [in this case] would be unique and therefore of no value – even for scrap it would only be a couple of coppers! Fully electrically operated vehicles will be the norm in our lifetimes and considering the cheapness of running these vehicle’s, it is a no brainer. The only thing holding back the full flow of these vehicle’s is the oil industry as their sale of fuel will diminish exponentially. Exhausts contribute chronic pollution and lowering of quality of life and longevity. It is a pity there are not more concessions for hybrid and ‘e’ vehicles to promote the growth of same. Free parking, free charging, maybe even a cash sum equivalent tot he amount of miles these vehicle’s travel for the first 5 years?
EV’s are still far too expensive & the range for most is pathetic unless you are living in a city with a small daily mileage. There is also the worry that you are going to run out of charge & then what would you do go & get a canful of electricity from somewhere? Not practical! The hysteria over diesel pollution from modern diesel cars is grossly exaggerated & modern diesel cars are still the most economical & cleanest type of propulsion around & will be for a long time yet. It’s commercial vehicles that are the nigger in the woodpile with older lorries, buses, trains, etc that are the greatest polluters so if more energy were put into cleaning these up it would be far more beneficial to the environment when the cost of producing the batteries, the electricity etc were taken into account . We have a modern Skoda Yeti with the latest Euro 6 engine that injects Adblue into the exhaust & you can smell nothing from the exhaust that is emitted & no worries over the range either. I understand that all modern buses/lorries etc are also using this technology. Can you really see these vehicles converting to running on battery power any time soon!? A lot of hysteria promoted by the silly little green party & the media who have jumped on the band wagon in my opinion.
The Leaf is around 7k used or 20k new with a reasonable but not great range of 80-120miles per charge depending on model. It won’t suite everyone but it’s a viable option for a lot of people.
more stationary cars to cause more congestion on our over crowed roads if this happens
To have a pipe or cable over a footway or carriageway is an offence under Highway legislation and carries a substantial fine.
Whats all this about FREE charging ??? Just how much does it cost to charge a car ? Cables/parking at the chargepoint ….. You can see the cost of fuel at the garage forecourt , but never seen the recharge price openly quoted . I prefer my 2.0l diesel at 50 mpg . Can I find miles per Kw anywhere please ?
About £3 to charge so that works out at about 2p a mile.
I could be wrong but I think it’s just under 5 miles per kwh but that’s a very rough estimate.
Bought an Auris Hybrid at the beginning of the year. Does the job well, without having to find a charging point. I find that driving normaly works well. Dont try to “force” the cat to drive on the battery unless it wants to. Got to admit I was lucky to get in before the Tax change.
More than 50% of pollution in cities is caused by busses, taxis and other public service vehicles (Dustcarts etc.). We used to have trolley busses, which were zero pollution but had a problem with overhead wires and moving the collector arm when they went round corners.
Using a battery / electric system. The bus could be recharged or run on straight sections, only requiring the battery at junctions. The arm could be engaged automatically. The wires would be encased and therefore insulated , apart from the slit below, (like an overhead crane supply) and would be hung off the street lamps. This would be much more aesthetically pleasing than the forest of wires of the traditional trolley bus.
Taxis could be battery driven with quick recharge in cab ranks. Other utility vehicles could use swap batteries, every time they went back to the depot. Rubbish could be removed by conveyor. There have been one or two pilot schemes.
The ultimate is to redesign the city to have compulsory park and ride, keeping all vehicles out of the centre. People pods (like Heathrow terminal 5) would take you to your destination, or the tube station. Pedestrians would occupy the highest level, with covered areas for inclement weather. Lower levels would house service vehicles, delivery vehicles, electricity sewage etc and the aforementioned pods.
If the government took back control of the Hydro Electricity. Instead of putting excess electricity to earth every night, it could be used to power cars at night.
Well my street has ZERO lampposts on it, the two lights we do have are attached to the side of houses & with the amount of cars parked on the road, half up on the foot paths, double parked & sometimes TRIPLE parked as theres so bloomin many of them, not to mention the commercial vans as well (why some people need three cars is beyond me) there would be constant fights over who gets to use the charging points, no driveways, or garages round here either.