ubitricity announced today a partnership with UK Power Networks aimed at revolutionising electric vehicle (EV) charging by shifting demand away from periods of peak demand and creating added flexibility for EV drivers.
The deal reached is a two-year ‘flexibility tender’ agreement, and underscores ubitricity’s efforts for environmental sustainability and grid efficiency.
Under the terms of the agreement ubitricity will roll out a pilot program across a number of its public EV charge points to shift a significant portion of network utilisation for EV charging away from peak times, with the aim of reducing pressure on the electricity grid, whilst still providing convenient and fairly priced charging.
While this type of smart charging is already available with some home chargers, ubitricity is set to be the first company to introduce it across a public network.
It will actively manage charging schedules across its charge points, promoting solutions such as ubitricity’s smart charging, which allows customers to schedule charging sessions to pause during peak hours (4-7pm) over the winter period.
"This agreement will directly contribute to lowering CO2 emissions by reducing demands on the grid at peak times, when fossil fuels are most likely to be used to generate electricity," said Toby Butler, Managing Director at ubitricity UK.
"We are proud to be the first fully public charging network engaging with electricity distributors to actively shift charging demand away from peak times, optimising EV charging infrastructure for the benefit of the grid and the environment.
“By embracing innovation and collaboration with partners such as UKPN we believe we can drive positive change, combining this together with our introduction of our Smart Charging feature making it even easier for customers to skip peak charging, we’re both reducing the use of fossil fuels and lowering EV charging costs for our consumers."
ubitricity is a Zapmap Live data partner which means that users of the Zapmap app and web map can see the live status and availability of ubitricity’s network of charge points at any time to enable them to plan their charging stops more efficiently.
“This agreement is great news for customers because we are opening up opportunities for even more people through flexible charging,” said Sotiris Georgiopoulos, Director of DSO at UK Power Networks.
"Widening participation in flexibility is a key part of our plan to keep connecting low carbon technologies to the electricity network while delivering savings to customers of £60m in traditional network investment in 2023 alone.”
