The UK Government’s Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 came into effect yesterday (24 November) holding chargepoint operators (CPOs) to a new standard of compliance.
The measures are intended to improve customer experience, answering the assertation made by those reluctant to switch to an EV that the charging network is insufficient.
To that end, the legislation was built on four key areas of the consumer experience. It ensures consumers can easily find a charge point that fits their needs, ease of payment, confidence in the good working order of the charging network and enables price comparison across networks.
The first change under the Public Charge Point Regulations has already been implemented, with CPOs required to display all prices in pence per kWh. In a LinkedIn post exploring the regulation, CEO and co-founder of Paua Niall Ridell, who recently won a special recognition award at Solar Media’s EVIEs, said the pricing “seems to have been bodged”.
Although CPOs will have to display a maximum price that consumers could pay, dynamic pricing can still occur—but as Ridell points out, companies will be able to divide a fixed fee by energy volume, meaning that customers will likely have to work to ascertain what a charge will cost ahead of use.
Ensuring 99% charging reliability
The headline legislation is probably the reliability requirement that CPOs ensure their charge points are available 99% of the time or be subject to penalties.
Read more: Current+
