Executive Summary
England’s Economic Heartland (EEH) is the sub-national transport body covering the region from Swindon and Oxfordshire across to Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire. This includes the entirety of the Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor. We are at the forefront of boosting connectivity to unlock our region’s unique economic potential, improve people’s lives and support environmental ambitions.
The world is changing fast, and whilst net zero will bring a wealth of benefits to our region and our residents, keeping up with the transition to electric vehicles will be a significant challenge.
Our role as a pan-regional body means we’re well-positioned to support each local authority with accurate, timely and granular data which will assist the transition to electric vehicles.
Planning ahead for Electric Vehicle (EV) growth
Over the next 25 years, our region’s population and housing stock will grow rapidly, with government targets to build over 37,000 homes, every year, until 2035. Every new home, street and town will change how we travel and how much energy we use.
In this report, we have commissioned Field Dynamics to consider projections in housing growth and combine them with their electric vehicle (EV) demand modelling to project energy usage from EVs across the EEH region. They have also used Zapmap data to assess the level of currently installed charging infrastructure and Field Dynamics’s assumptions around maximum potential capacity to identify how many chargers would be required to service this public demand.
This provides councils with a) the scale of the challenge, b) robust data with which to estimate future energy needs and c) clear areas for targeting of infrastructure.
For any further support or guidance, or if you just want to ask us a question, you can reach us here.
Introduction
The UK government is committed to reaching net zero by 2050, and the National Energy System Operator (NESO) is already producing Regional Energy Strategic Plans (RESPs) to ensure local areas get the infrastructure they need to meet local growth ambitions and net-zero targets.
Whilst this is a vital step towards bottom-up planning, the RESPs won’t necessarily provide the highly granular evidence for local authorities to meaningfully engage with their Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) or the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV).
To this end, NESO have recommended that local authorities (LAs) develop Local Area Energy Plans (LAEPs). These can be costly and time intensive, and LAs won’t always have the capacity to fully engage with this process.
EEH recognise these challenges and are well placed to support. We have an extensive set of data resources and accompanying expertise that we want to share with councils, to support them with their decarbonisation strategies.
To that end, we’ve commissioned this report highlight a) the need for strategic planning to decarbonise transport and b) the data that we have available to help make better informed infrastructure decisions.
National & Regional Landscape
Across Great Britain, the transport sector is the single largest user of energy (Figure 1, DUKES). Even after air, rail and other miscellaneous travel are removed, road transport still accounted for over 450TWh of energy. For context, domestic electricity consumption in 2023 was just 92.6TWh. This highlights the scale of the challenge, but also the size of the opportunity.
As the country progresses toward its Net Zero targets, the overall vehicle parc will increasingly convert to electric, and ever more drivers will need to charge their vehicles. Whilst EVs are significantly more efficient than their fossil-fuel counterparts, this will still lead to a dramatic increase in electricity demand. To ensure that the energy network does not constrain local ambitions, it is vital for local authorities to understand and communicate where this demand will be, and what level of reinforcement is required.
The Department for Energy and Net Zero (DESNZ) publish the estimated fuel consumption by local authority (Figure 2) which provides some indication of where future demand might occur. Across the EEH region, total fuel consumption from Cars, Light Goods Vehicles (LGVs) and Motorcycles was 35.1TWh. Current consumption is significantly higher in Buckinghamshire and West Northamptonshire, which is unsurprising given that they’re the largest local authorities, and it suggests they may need the highest levels of infrastructure. However, this data does not necessarily show where the actual EV charging will take place (many can charge at home, whereas others will need to charge at public locations). As a result, there are still many open questions:
- How will regional EV uptake vary, and what does this mean for reinforcement priorities?
- How much driving is done, and what will this mean for energy demand at the granular level?
- What proportion of demand will need to be serviced by the public network?
- How much additional public charging infrastructure is required?
Why does this matter to councils in the Heartland, and how can EEH help?
Despite the scale of the challenge, transport is primed for decarbonisation. Together we can answer:
- Where will the increase in households occur?
- How much energy demand will come from EVs?
- How much demand will there be on the public charging network?
- How many devices do we need to service that demand?
To support councils, we use the answers to these questions to produce a credible projection of energy demand from electric vehicles out to 2050.
Growth in Dwellings
EEH have collated the local plans for all local authorities in the region (updated July 2024). This includes the provision of an additional 452,327 dwellings between 2021 – 2050, with almost 275,000 of these due to be built in the next 10 years (2026-2035).
In practice, this is likely an under-estimate (it doesn’t include new towns, and most current plans do not extend beyond 2035). There remains considerable uncertainty around long-term housing plans. To account for this, we have created three additional scenarios to model a range of potential outcomes to 2050:
i. Council local plans until 2030, followed by an annual increase equal to the average annual net additions between 2021/22 and 2023/24.
ii. Council local plans until 2030, followed by an annual increase equal to the planned average annual net additions between 2025-2030.
iii. Government targets (average annual housing completions) for the 2025-2035 period but applied right through to 2050 (noting there is no indication of what actual government targets will be post-2035). We also account for three potential new towns in the EEH region which account for ~93,000 additional homes (NTT report).
More information on how we derived these scenarios can be found in the methodology.
EV Charging (kWh) Energy Demand
To calculate EV energy demand, Field Dynamics have analysed over 80 million MOT records to understand real-world driver patterns and the associated demand for EV charging under the existing car parc. As the housing stock increases, this EV demand will grow (more households means more cars). To account for this, we combine the base projections from Field Dynamics with the additional demand under the three housing scenarios (see method for detail).
Under existing council development plans, total EV charging demand will exceed 8.8TWh by 2050 (Figure 4a). This varies by local authority (Figure 4b), with the highest demand projections in Buckinghamshire (915 GWh) and West Northamptonshire (744 GWh); again, this is unsurprising given the size and population of these local authorities. The total demand figure grows further across each of the three additional scenarios, reaching 10.1TWh under scenario (i), 10.3TWh under scenario (ii) and 11.0TWh under scenario (iii). Projecting the growth of new dwellings over 20 years into the future is highly uncertain, but these three scenarios are likely to be more reflective of overall demand by 2050 when compared with the existing, time-limited council plans.
Public Charging Requirements (kWh)
Whilst projecting total energy load is crucial for network reinforcement planning, it’s also helpful for local authorities to understand what demand will be placed on the public charging network, and how many additional charge points will be required.
Field Dynamics have mapped every property in Great Britain to identify households that do not have space to charge an EV at home (see method and report for detail). Demand from these residents is likely to exceed 2.4TWh under existing house-build plans, but almost 3.1TWh if you factor in government targets. Buckinghamshire remains top of the list with 311 GWh of public demand, whilst Fenland has the least at just 40 GWh.
How many devices are required?
Using Field Dynamics’s Theoretical Maximum Annual Capacity (TMAC, see method for detail), it is possible to estimate the number of additional charge points required to service the demand by 2050. We use housing scenario iii (government targets) to assess the upper range in potential requirements, and we create five different potential deployment configurations (predominantly slow through to predominantly rapid). The results for each local authority are shown in Figure 5.
Across the entire EEH region, the required installations range from ~70,300 charging bays under the ‘predominantly slower’ scenario, through to ~26,300 in the ‘predominantly rapids’ scenario. We do not advocate for one scenario over another; the eventual configurations must balance convenience for EV drivers but also commerciality for councils and CPOs alike. Moreover, cross-authority partnerships will help minimise this number, as users can come from outside of an authority to charge their car.
However, and irrespective of the configuration, the numbers highlight that this is an achievable outcome; EV uptake will increase gradually between now and 2050, and not every charge-point will need to be installed immediately. Using the ‘even split’ configuration, and assuming installations are carried out incrementally over the next 15 years, the average local authority needs to install 111 charge-points per year (or 3,221 across the entire EEH area).
What does this mean for local authorities?
Local authorities will have to balance competing priorities over the coming decades. Road transport is not the only sector that will become increasingly reliant on the power network. Domestic electricity consumption across the EEH region exceeded 8.1TWh in 2023, and recent studies show that the installation of a heat pump (whilst more efficient overall) can increase electricity demand by over 60%. If even 25% of households were to switch by 2050, total demand would already exceed that of road transport. Clearly, electricity demand will increase significantly, and councils will need to stay ahead of this; inevitably, this will require more generation and transmission infrastructure. Knowing when and where demand will increase should allow councils (and DNO partners) to effectively plan for this transition whilst minimising disruption to residents.
Conclusion
As the country progresses towards it net zero targets, and every-day activities become increasingly electrified, local authorities must actively plan with their energy network to ensure planned growth ambitions will be met. However, not all councils will have the resources to effectively engage in this process, and they risk being overlooked as a result. EEH are well placed to support this.
In this report, we’ve demonstrated the art of the possible, creating a granular and robust projection of energy demand from EV charging, out to 2050. This compliments existing projections using a different approach and adds much needed data points to constrain the range of potential outcomes. It also provides invaluable insight into the scale of the challenge; whilst transport might currently be the biggest energy user, it is primed for decarbonisation, and councils are well placed to meet their residents on-street charging needs with a suitable profile of charger locations and speed mix.
Road transport is not the only piece of the puzzle, and any EV interventions should also complement broader public transport initiatives (e.g. East West Rail using station car parks to support EVs but also encouraging travel by rail). Again, EEH are well placed to support with their holistic approach and relationships across local authorities. Crucially, getting it right will not only advance net zero goals but also improve the quality of residents’ everyday lives.
Methodology
Housing Projections
Planned dwellings: We have reviewed the local plans for each local authority, extracting the locations and size of planned housing developments. For modelling, we have grouped these into five-year intervals and mapped them to Local Authorities.
Three scenarios: The local plans tend not to extend beyond 2030/2035. As such, there is significant uncertainty surrounding long-term housing growth; both in terms of scale (how many) and location (where will the new homes be built). However, we recognise that the housing stock is unlikely to remain flat after this time, and we create three potential scenarios to model a range of outcomes.
Scenario (i): Lowest Growth. We use the planned home installations from the local plans until 2030. After this, we apply a constant growth factor every year to 2050. This growth factor is the average of actual annual net additions for the three years between 2021/22 and 2023/24, for each respective local authority.
Scenario (ii): Moderate Growth. We use the planned home installations from the local plans until 2030. After this, we apply a constant growth factor every year to 2050. This growth factor is the average of the planned ned additions between 2025-2030 for each respective local authority.
Scenario (iii): Highest Growth. We use the average annual housing completions (government targets) for the 2025-2035 period, but we apply this right through to 2050. As highlighted in the report, there is no indication that these targets will remain the same. Rather, we use these values to reflect a ‘high-demand’ scenario where housing growth continues at the current rapid rates.
In addition, The government has recently announced planned new-towns that will add considerably to housing stock in the region (NTT report). There are three new towns that EEH are aware of for this region; these are 1) Tempsford in Central Bedfordshire (40,000 homes), 2) Heyford Park in Cherwell (13,000 homes) and 3) Milton Keynes (additional 40,000 homes). For each new town, we don’t know when they will be built, so we spread the installations evenly between 2031 to 2050. We include these in scenario iii.
In each scenario, we extract the relevant installation rates and government housing targets into five-year intervals out to 2050, mapping them to each respective local authority.
Calculating the Number of Chargers to Install
We take the total projection for on-street demand, accounting for government new-build targets, as the most reasonable scenario for 2050 charging demand. This is the amount of energy that public chargers will need to supply.
TMAC: Field Dynamics have developed a concept called TMAC (Theoretical Maximum Annual Capacity). This is the maximum output from a given charger based on a set of reasonable assumptions around charging speed and human behaviour. A detailed review of the methodology is available here.
Existing Infrastructure: Zapmap have supplied the locations of every Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) point, split by power group, across GB. We assume that every EVSE can charge a vehicle, and therefore apply the respective TMAC to each, thus, calculating total existing capacity across GB. Note that we assume every Fast charger is Fast AC.
Remaining capacity: By subtracting existing capacity from total 2050 requirements, we create the delta, i.e. the additional capacity that must be installed.
Configuration scenarios: There is no ‘one’ configuration for the power ratings of EV charging that is best to deploy. For illustrative purposes, we’ve created five scenarios ranging from mostly slower chargers to mostly faster. Using the weightings in Table 1, we calculate the proportion of the demand that will be met through each charging speed and can therefore calculate (using TMAC) how many of those devices will be required.
EV Energy Demand
GigaMap: Field Dynamics (FD) have developed a hyper-granular view of EV energy demand through a comprehensive analysis of over ~ 95 million MOT records.
The MOT dataset, an annual test of vehicle safety, allows Field Dynamics to calculate actual miles driven, as well as the make and model for each anonymised vehicle by Postcode Area. By comparing each vehicle to the New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) data to group the vehicles into standard classifications (i.e. Supermini, Small Family Car, Large Family Car, etc.), it is possible to assign a battery efficiency to each NCAP classifications (based on today’s set of EVs). By assessing the geographic spread of these vehicles, and accounting for variations in mileage, Field Dynamics calculate the energy demand of every car and van on the road in Great Britain.
Accounting for growth: The GigaMap baseline can be supplemented by our view of population growth in the region. By taking an average of each household energy demand (calculated in GigaMap as Total LA energy / Total LA households), we can generate the energy demand for all subsequent additional newbuilds.
EV uptake: EV ownership will increase gradually. We use our composite national EV percentage curve to project the increase in charging demand. This was created from the National Energy System Operators (NESO) latest Future Energy Scenarios (FES) workbook, utilising the 10-year forecast and then joining it to the longer-term Electric Engagement curve.
EV Map: Field Dynamics have mapped every household in GB to understand whether there is space to install and use an EV charger. Those without space are ‘on-street’ properties, and we assume that all their charging demand will need to be met by the public network.
