Research from Delta-EE, the specialist new energy research and consulting company, has revealed that High Power Charging (HPC) is expected to grow 24-fold in the next decade. The UK is expected to be Europe’s second-largest HPC market with 28,000 HPCs installed by 2030.
According to Delta-EE’s European EV Chargepoint Forecast, HPCs have emerged as a trend in the past two years and their growth is set to dramatically accelerate, up from a base of 4,400 HPCs installed in 2020. Many specialist transit charge point operators are now installing HPC charge points, supporting this segment’s growth. HPC charging is defined as 100kW+ charging which can result in charging a Jaguar iPace (90kWh battery) from ten to 80 per cent in less than 40 minutes using a 100kW charge point. Most newer vehicles, such as the Jaguar I-pace or Tesla Model 3 will be equipped to work with HPCs, however, some older EV models will still require a slower charge.
The report goes on to predict there will be 14 million electric vehicles (EVs) on UK roads by 2030 and 8.3 million charge points installed by then – of which 6.1 million will be home charge points, a slightly higher market share than the European average (74 per cent in the UK, compared with a 73 per cent average). Across Europe, around 23 per cent of EV owners do not have off-street parking, the report highlights.
William van der Byl, EV Charging Service Manager at Delta-EE, commented: “While a small percentage of current EV owners don’t have access to home chargepoints, future drivers will be less likely to charge at home. In the UK, only two-thirds of houses have off-street parking and so it is important we continue to develop infrastructure that supports convenient charging – whether this is fast charging through HPCs or offering more workplace charging.”
The report goes on to note that the biggest segment growth will come in workplace charging as more drivers are unable to charge at home.
Van der Byl noted: “What is interesting about the data on workplace charging is the split between employee/office charging and return to depot charging for fleet services. Today, return to depot charging is a small part of the market but we expect this to grow strongly and reach a near even split with charge points for employee/office use by 2030 as companies electrify their fleets.”
To date, a large amount of investment in EV charge point infrastructure has come from private finance, with the UK being a highly competitive market. However, the National Infrastructure Strategy of 2020 has committed £1.3 billion to support EV charging roll-out. This level of continued support delivers certainty to the EV charging market at a time when EV sales continue to break records.
