The Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021
You've probably heard that from June 30th this year, there are new smart regulations in place. These regulations do have a knock-on effect for EV drivers that charge their cars at home in the UK, so we wanted to give you a better idea about why they’re in place and what they mean for you.
These regulations have been put in place on all private charge points, the reason for this is to ensure that as the market grows and more and more drivers switch to electric, the grid can handle the increased activity. There are two key regulations to be aware of:
- Default Charging Schedule
The first one is known as a default charging schedule. In short, the government has deemed that between the hours of 8-11AM and 4-10PM on weekdays are when the grid has the highest demands. With the new regulations, all charge points have to be delivered with a default charging schedule that doesn’t charge your car during these hours. This can be a bit of a pain, but all charge points have to also allow you to override these settings at any point. We will come on to this.
- Randomised Delay
The second key regulation is called a randomised delay. This basically means that every charging session can have a small delay of up to 10 minutes post plugging in. This has been put in place so we don't end up with millions of cars all starting charging at the same time, causing huge pressure on the grid at a given time.
Every single session, by law, has to have this randomised delay applied, however if you do need to charge immediately, charge point manufacturers have to provide the option to cancel this delay on each charge.
So, how does this work in practice?
Well, with the EVIOS One, it’s easy to see exactly what’s going on by looking at the large colour screen on the charge point itself or on the app.
Your EVIOS One will indeed be delivered with the charging schedule applied, however, you can turn this off on the charge point once it’s installed, or at any time after on the EVIOS app. Once you’ve adjusted your settings, the unit will store them, so you won’t need to amend this schedule every day.
For the randomised delay, as mentioned, every session will start with this. However, the EVIOS One shows you exactly how long the delay is and counts down on the charge point screen, it also gives you the option to override it with the push of just one button.
Who has to comply?
In short, all charge points installed privately after 30th June must comply. All charge point manufacturers will be handling this in slightly different ways. Those without a screen on their units may be a little more complex to override.
At EVIOS, we’ve put a lot of time into ensuring our products are totally compliant with these regulations whilst also ensuring that you remain in the driving seat and can override these settings at any point, easily and quickly.
I'm still confused - where can I find help?
If you have any questions about these regulations, or about how we, at EVIOS, comply, we’d be delighted to assist you by getting in touch. Simply call us on 01234 916103 or email us at helpdesk@myevios.com