BT Group scraps plans to turn street cabinets into charging stations
According to the UK’s The Fast Charge, BT’s one and only charge point station has been out of order, and the company has abandoned its plans to turn a total of 60,000 cabinets into chargers. In fact, it will even remove the one it had installed in East Lothian, Scotland.
BT retrofitted its first and only distribution box in August 2024. These cabinets were initially used for broadband and telephone cables, but both are no longer needed, which is why they will be decommissioned. BT planned to turn 60,000 of them into EV chargers using “a device that enables renewable energy to be shared to a charge point alongside the existing broadband service with no need to create a new power connection.”
It is not clear why BT has changed its course of action; it will only now focus on improving WiFi connectivity around existing EV chargers. It will ensure that drivers are able to access charging apps, for example.
“Our EV charging trials have focussed on how we might help address the charging needs EV drivers face across the UK,” a BT Group spokesperson told The Fast Charge. “By adopting a pilot process we have been able to test and explore a great deal about the challenges that many on-street EV drivers are facing with charging and where BT Group can add most value to the UK EV ecosystem. Other emerging needs we’ve identified include the Wi-Fi connectivity challenge surrounding EV’s – our pilots will now shift in focus to explore this further.”
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