Garages make way for EV charging

EV Charging

Hundreds of lock-up garages in London and the Home Counties could be replaced by electric vehicle charging stations under a business agreement struck between SSE Enterprise and InfraTech Property Solutions (IPS). 

SSE Enterprise is part of energy business the SSE Group. IPS manages hundreds of garage sites across the capital and Home Counties. 

The companies envisage building ‘digital community hubs’ featuring rapid electric vehicle stations, 5G, and Edge computing  on the sites. The latter brings computation and data storage closer to the location where it is needed, to improve response times and save bandwidth.

Each facility would have between ten and 20 charging bays. 

SSE Enterprise will design, develop and operate the facilities, with the aim of rolling them out at up to 1,000 IPS managed sites across London and the Home Counties. The concept will be piloted near Heathrow Airport terminal 4 later this year, providing charging for local delivery vehicles and electric taxis. 

Solar and battery technology, as well as distributed energy generation, will be deployed at the hubs to ease pressure on the electricity grid. 

Kevin Welstead, SSE Enterprise EV sector director, said: “Space in the capital to build charging hubs is like gold dust, but thanks to the network of lock-up garages tucked away across the city managed by IPS, we can build a network that could charge a tenth of all EVs in London.”

Iceni Projects is advising SSE Enterprise and IPS on planning and property matters.