I drove past one the UK’s very few dedicated public HGV charging points this week, on the A1(M) at Junction 10, to be specific. While I didn’t have time to pull off the road to see if any of the six bays were being used, I hear they are very well adapted to heavy use, including pull through bays and beefy 350kW chargers on both sides – since charging port locations vary, unlike motorway junctions.
It sounds like a great public infrastructure site, but there remains so few of them for HGVs – about 10 in the entire country – so depot charging remains a critical option for the committed. It is timely, therefore, to remind heavy vehicle fleet operators that applications for the first window of government funding for the Depot Charging Scheme (DCS) will close at the end of next month at the latest, with another window opening in October.
As long as you already operate an electric van, truck, bus, minibus or coach, or have one on order, you can access cash from the £170 million scheme, which supports depot infrastructure installation, by applying here. A total of £28 million is being handed out through this DCS window, closing on June 30, or whenever the sum is allocated.
The DCS covers 70% of most of the hardware and works costs, up to £1 million per operator, helping grow zero emission HGV adoption which currently represents around one in 70 new registrations. Frustratingly, however, smaller operators are unlikely to benefit, given the need to swallow the likely bill – from the electricity provider, the Distribution Network Operator or DNO – for any necessary upgrades for your connection to the grid. Depending on your ambitions, the number of chargers and their output, this could easily sail past six figures.
Government and industry currently remain committed to a 2040 end-of-sale date for new, non-zero emission trucks. It was concerning, therefore, that when the DCS window was announced in March this year, the Plug-in Truck Grant was reduced from £120,000 to £86,000. Given new zero emission HGV uptake dipped year-on-year in Q1, every policy lever must be pulled to overcome barriers to the HGV transition, and sooner rather than later. To loosely quote Eric Morecambe, we need all of the right measures and, necessarily, in the right order.
