Buildings of the Future: The Electric Vehicle Revolution

The Government has launched a public consultation on its plans to create a part to the building regulations requiring new buildings to be electric vehicle (EV) ready, as well as creating new legislation to implement the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive.

The consultation puts forward 4 proposals (2 for residential and 2 for non-residential buildings).

For residential buildings:

1. Every new building with an associated car parking space must have a charge point. This includes any building undergoing a material change of use to create a dwelling; and
2. Every building undergoing major renovation with more than 10 car parking spaces must have cable routes for electric vehicle charge points in every car parking space.

For non-residential buildings:

1. From 2025, every existing building with more than 20 car parking spaces will be required to have at least one charge point; and

2. Every new building or building undergoing a major renovation with more than 10 car parking spaces must have one charge point and cable routes for an electric vehicle charge point for one in five spaces.

The consultation has not proposed a timeframe for implementation for the other three proposals relating to residential buildings or new build non-residential buildings.

The consultation is open until 11:45pm on 7 October 2019 and you can respond via the link here, but here are some of our initial thoughts:

1. Developers and contractors will need to think about the capacity of charging point to be installed and whether they should incorporate a battery storage unit to help manage the load on the grid and reduce the cost of the purchasing electricity for their users;
2. What types of building work will be considered to be “major renovation” requiring installation of cable routes for electric vehicle charge points?;
3. What about residential buildings without driveways? it is currently unclear how the charge points would be incorporated into such buildings -
4. The amended regulations would only require some projects to “have cable routes for electric vehicle charge points” – not to have the actual charge points which means the problem is only half resolved. 

Article written by Greg Fearn