Eliminating fuel vehicles is an important step in the UK’s carbon reduction route, and 2030 is the deadline for the sale of fuel vehicles in the UK. From then on, electric cars will drive the streets of Britain. But what does not match the ideal is that the number of charging stations in the UK is far from enough, and there are even “charging blind spots”. In order to allow people to safely and boldly drive electric vehicles, the British government not only intends to expand the number at a rate of 145,000 per year, but also requires new buildings to be equipped with charging stations.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday that the installation of electric car chargers for new buildings in England will be mandatory from 2022. “We will require new homes and buildings to have electric vehicle charging points,” Johnson told the annual conference of the Confederation of Commerce and Industry (CBI).
Last year the British government set a target to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars after 2030. At present, 250,000 charging stations have been installed in homes and workplaces across the UK. Johnson’s plan is to build on this by adding 145,000 new charging points a year until 2030. This means that by the end of 2030, the UK will have more than 1.55 million charging stations.
It is part of the “green revolution” and the transition of the UK economy to clean energy. Business Secretary Ed Miliband said: “The government needs to step up help for low and middle income earners to buy electric cars and accelerate the rollout of charging points in areas currently left out to ensure everyone benefits from the transition and Make the green transition fair.”
Under the huge demand, many companies are also eyeing this business. The British charging pile company Connected Kerb recently stated that it has reached a cooperation agreement with the British government. By 2030, 190,000 public charging piles will be installed in the UK, with an investment of up to 1.9 billion pounds. The project will receive subsidies from the British government, and financial investment institutions and banks will also provide financial support.
Chris Pateman-Jones, chief executive of Connected Kerb, said the convenience of charging has become a key consideration for consumers when buying electric vehicles. The above-mentioned plan will effectively improve the reliability of the UK’s electric vehicle-related infrastructure.
In addition to charging pile companies, gas stations, the bottom core in the era of fuel vehicles, are not willing to be abandoned. Last week, Shell, the world’s largest oil company, issued a statement stating that Shell’s Ubitricity division will install 50,000 roadside charging piles in the UK by 2025. According to statistics, Shell has built about 3,600 charging piles based on the existing infrastructure in the UK.
Regarding the establishment of public charging piles, Shell said that the UK government’s Office of Zero Emission Vehicles currently bears 75% of the cost of installing roadside charging piles, while Shell is prepared to bear the remaining costs under commercial terms. The British government and Shell did not disclose the overall cost of the entire plan.
Carbon reduction acceleration
In 2008, the United Kingdom formally promulgated the Climate Change Act, becoming the first country in the world to clarify medium- and long-term emission reduction targets in legal form. In 2019, the UK revised the Climate Change Act and formally established the carbon neutrality goal of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Among them, transport is the biggest stumbling block on the road to carbon reduction in the UK. Under the trend of gradual decline in carbon emissions in the fields of commerce, construction, and industrial production, carbon emissions in the transportation sector remain high. Data show that in 2019, the carbon dioxide emissions from the transportation sector were 130 million tons, accounting for 37% of the UK’s carbon dioxide consumption terminal emissions, making it the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the UK.
While making efforts to electrify cars, the UK is also committed to promoting the transfer of car travel to public transportation, walking and bicycle travel. For example, use bicycles instead of short-distance car trips, or provide door-to-door services similar to cars through “public transportation + bicycles”. According to the UK Transport Survey 2019, journeys under 2 miles accounted for 58% of all car journeys in the UK. It has been calculated that if these short-distance car trips are replaced by bicycles, it will bring about a potential reduction of 68 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
To this end, the UK plans to invest 2 billion pounds in the next five years to build a world-class walking and cycling network, and adopt a package plan to make walking and cycling the first choice for people’s daily travel, including infrastructure upgrades, revision and improvement of regulations to ensure Priority for walking and cycling etc.
However, the UK has to do much more than that on the road to carbon reduction. It comes after the government announced a new three-year plan to provide £150m in innovation loans to UK small businesses, part of which will support environmental technologies. “We are investing in new projects to convert wind energy into hydrogen,” Johnson said, according to a summary of his speech released on Monday.
As guest of honor at this year’s COP26 summit, Johnson said at the summit: “We are starting to form these coalitions to help those countries that are finding it most difficult to transition away from fossil fuels. If we don’t solve our climate problem, it will It would be an economic disaster and it would be an environmental disaster.”
