Westminster targets over 2,000 on-street charge points
Westminster Council has turned to Siemens again to build out lamppost charging in the London borough. 500 new Ubitricity charge points shall link up to the existing network by spring 2023, impressively bringing up the total number of chargers in Westminster.
Westminster Council says that with the addition, they will run more than 2,000 EV charging points in the central London district – “the highest number of any London borough,” Michael Sharkey of Siemens eMobility said.
Siemens eMobility, Ubitricity and Westminster reportedly have been working together for some time, and in April last year had installed more than 1,000 on-street EV charging points. Most prominently, they had also electrified an entire street in 2020, as reported.
Ubitricity charge points built directly into existing street lampposts charge up to 5kW and take under two hours to install.
The lack of public EV charging stations is a common barrier to EV adoption in London, where many residents do not have access to private off-street parking and charging. For the new installations, Westminster Council is reaching out, asking residents to request an EV charge point near them using an online form.
The borough encompasses the bulk of London’s central area and suffers some of the worst air quality in the UK. The council declared a climate emergency in 2019 and created the City for All vision that outlines plans for Westminster to become a carbon-neutral council by 2030 and a carbon-neutral city by 2040.
Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg, Cabinet Member for City Management and Air Quality at Westminster City Council, said today: “With the help from our Siemens and Ubitricity partners, we are working towards a scenario where all resident vehicles in Westminster become electric in the future and this pledge for an additional 500 charging points to be installed across the borough, with a potential stretch target of 1000, is a big step toward reaching this goal.”
However, Westminster is not the only borough relying on Siemens and Ubitricity. Siemens says it has now completed more than 4,500 Ubitricity charge point installations across London, significantly funded by the Go Ultra Low Cities Scheme.
On a national level, Shell wholly owns Ubitricty since September 2021. The oil and gas corporation targets installing 50,000 Ubitricity charging points in the UK by 2025, funded mainly by the British Government’s On-Street Residential Charging Scheme (ORCS). Shell only needs to retain about a quarter of the cost.
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