North Yorkshire Council
Richmondshire (Yorks) Area Constituency Committee
18 September 2023
Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure in Hambleton
Report of the Corporate Director of Environment
1.0 PURPOSE OF REPORT
1.1 To provide background and an update on delivery of EV charging Infrastructure as delivered by the former Hambleton District Council.
2.0 BACKGROUND
2.1 The installation of Electric Vehicle Charging infrastructure (EVCI) was included as part of a Car Park Improvement Scheme approved by the full Council of Hambleton District Council (HDC) in July 2018. The scheme followed a review and investigation of the Council’s pay and display car park estate, which identified recommendations for improvements, with the aim to provide modern, attractive and customer focused car parking facilities.
2.2 The principal elements of the scheme were; the replacement of the pay and display parking machines, introduction of flexible payments including a cashless payment system, revised and improved car park layouts, simplification, update, and replacement of on and off street signage, improvements to security through additional CCTV coverage, amend and reformat the parking order to allow flexibility in parking management and prepare an electric vehicle charging infrastructure policy and introduce charging infrastructure.
2.3 Consultants Project Centre (CPC) Limited were appointed in June 2019 to provide support to the design and maintenance section officers with the design, procurement, and implementation of the scheme.
2.4 The initial phase of the car park improvement scheme, which included most of the principal elements, was implemented and operational by 1 April 2021. This included, on a pilot scheme basis, installation of Electric Vehicle Charge Points at the Applegarth Car Park in Northallerton and Millgate Car Park at Thirsk.
2.5 CPC performance was mixed. The scheme was delivered before and during the covid pandemic, which did have an adverse impact, but there were several changes in CPC’s personnel which adversely affected continuity. Ultimately CPC were unable to deliver the car parking improvement scheme in its entirety and there was a mutual agreement to terminate their involvement once the major elements of the scheme were complete.
2.6 A draft
electric vehicle charging point (EVCP) infrastructure policy was
developed by CPC, though they were not involved in its
implementation. The draft policy was to provide charge points in
Council owned car parks in the six main towns within the District:
Bedale, Easingwold, Great Ayton, Northallerton, Stokesley and
Thirsk.
2.7 At the time the council were working with a consultant investigating the feasibility of ground source heat pumps to provide energy to Northallerton Leisure Centre. The consultant EVS Energy Ltd was also working on developing a new EVCP bollard. EVS are a local company based in Bedale, their charge point design was not fully developed, though the concept of an EVCP contained within a bollard was different and fitted well into the conservation areas that contain the then Hambleton District Council car parks.
2.8 Pilot EVCP schemes were implemented in the Applegarth Car Park at Northallerton and Millgate Car Park in Thirsk by April 2021. Agreement to provide on-going maintenance and management of the charge points was planned but EVS Energy did not provide a proposal so the agreement could not be concluded. Following the delivery of the two initial pilot schemes, the response rate of EVS Energy became infrequent and progress on delivery of further EVCPs slowed. Installation was completed at Auction Mart Car Park in Bedale and partially completed at Showfield Car Park Stokesley. The two remaining sites at Galtres Centre, Easingwold and High Green, Great Ayton have power supplies, underground infrastructure and feeder pillars installed, but the above ground charge point bollards were not installed.
2.9 North Yorkshire Council (NYC) has since developed its own EVCP Public Charging Infrastructure Rollout Strategy[1], adopted by the Executive on 2 May 2023, for county wide rollout of EVCPs. NYC has secured £3.237m capital funding and hopes to secure an additional £4.88m capital funding for rollout of EVCPs county wide. NYC hopes to leverage private sector investment so that they can deliver a reliable and comprehensive network of EVCPs for its residents, visitors and businesses.
2.10 Since becoming a unitary authority on 1 April 2023 the contracts for EVCP infrastructure at the former district/borough authorities have transferred to North Yorkshire Council and will remain unchanged until the end of their terms when a new Charging Point Operator will be sought to take over. NYC has not yet delivered any publicly available EV charging infrastructure and intends to procure a Charging Point Operator (CPO) later this year to deliver, manage and maintain the network.
3.0 EV CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE IN HAMBLETON
3.1 The former Hambleton District Council created a series of small works orders to cover the cost of installation of Electric Vehicle Charging Points (EVCPs) with a local company, under a pilot scheme. There are a total of eight sites with 23 x 7kwh (slow) EVCP units in the area.
3.2 EVS Energy has not yet completed the installations as per their proposals and NYC legal team is speaking with the proposed receiver to establish if there is an opportunity for the supplier to complete the installations, to recover any assets that HDC has purchased, to share the specification for the EVCPs and give us access to the back office data and maintenance process/schedule so that we can get a new, appointed CPO to manage and maintain the EVCPs and retrofit meters in the units.
3.3 There are no contracts in place for the ongoing maintenance and management of the EVCPs in Hambleton, EVS Energy were doing this on a goodwill, but ad-hoc, basis until a contract was established but as of 4 August 2023 they have filed for insolvency. The network of existing chargers will be brought into the wider contract with the CPO chosen to deliver EVCP’s for North Yorkshire Council. It is proposed that the on-going costs for these charging points, or their replacements, will be covered through the revenue share agreement as part of the future EV charging point contract. The procurement for this is expected to launch shortly and we anticipate awarding a contract by the end of 2023.
3.4 The EVCPs in Hambleton do not have meters fitted, the meters allow you to charge the customer per kilowatt hour (p/kwh), but the current payment mechanism is to charge for parking through a Pay as You Go system, for around £1.50 per hour which does not cover the full electricity costs as the tariffs were set pre-covid when the cost of electricity was much lower. Current electric costs to the Council are 29p/kwh but when the rates were set pre-covid they were around 15 p/kwh going forward the cost of charging will be reviewed in line with the annual review of prices for parking
4.0 NEXT STEPS AND LESSONS LEARNED
4.1 NYC has engaged with the proposed receivers and await a response. NYC hopes that EVS Energy would complete the installations and return any assets that HDC have purchased but as a minimum they need to share the specification for the EVCPs and give us access to the back-office data and maintenance process/schedule so that we can get the appointed CPO to manage and maintain the EVCPs and retrofit meters in the units. Until that CPO is appointed, if something goes wrong with the existing EVCPs there is no contract in place to repair them. The performance of the EVCPs at present is variable.
4.2 In the absence of this information from EVS Ltd NYC will work with the new CPO, when they are appointed, to see if they can manage and maintain them, alternatively the EVCP units may become redundant which would result in a requirement to replace all of the above ground infrastructure.
4.3 In future it would be beneficial to use an open market procurement process to enable the authority to have assurance that the company has a contract for management and maintenance from the start and specifying that the CPO uses EVCP units that are fitted with meters would also enable the authority to charge more accurately.
5.0 FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
5.2 The budgeted value of the works in connection with the EVCP infrastructure is £93,909, to date we have spent:
· £37,149 for provision of power supplies and underground infrastructure.
· £40,555 on the above ground feeder pillars, charging bollards, electrical components, and the specialist consultant project management support.
· The remaining £16,205 had been allocated to EVS energy Ltd but was withheld because they did not complete the work.
5.3 £28,681 was rolled into the 2023/24 financial year which includes £16,205 that has not yet been spent on EVCPs being the remaining balance of the original Car Parking Improvement Scheme capital allocation of £550,000. The cost of retrofitting the meters in the units can be covered with the remaining amount.
5.4 Once we have a better understanding of financial implications of the insolvent company, at a later date, they will be reported on.
6.0 LEGAL IMPLICATIONS
6.1 The legal implications are covered in this report, however, once our legal team has got the full and final information the implications and actions can be reported on further.
7.0 EQUALITIES IMPLICATIONS
7.1 A screening assessment was undertaken, and an EIA was considered not proportionate for this briefing.
8.0 CLIMATE CHANGE IMPLICATIONS
8.1 There are climate implications associated with removing and replacing EVCP units. Once the implications of the supplier entering insolvency have been realised a full climate change assessment will be undertaken.
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9.0 |
RECOMMENDATION
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9.1 |
That members note the background and update on delivery of EV Charging Infrastructure as delivered by the former Hambleton District Council.
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APPENDICES: None
BACKGROUND DOCUMENTS:
KARL BATTERSBY
Corporate Director – Environment
County Hall
Northallerton
18 September 2023
Report Author – Clive Thornton, Corporate Facilities Manager and Keisha Moore, Senior Transport Planning Officer
Presenter of Report – Clive Thornton, Corporate Facilities Manager and Keisha Moore, Senior Transport Planning Officer
Note: Members are invited to contact the author in advance of the meeting with any detailed queries or questions.