Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the role of energy flexibility in managing local network constraints resulting from increased electric vehicle charging.

The Government is working on a range of measures to realise the benefits of a smarter and more flexible energy system. We are making good progress delivering the actions in the Government’s Smart Systems and Flexibility Plan to remove barriers to smart technologies such as storage and improve access to energy markets for new business models.

Smart charging of electric vehicles during off-peak periods when electricity demand is low can help avoid triggering unnecessary network reinforcement. Furthermore, this technology helps utilise renewable energy and can benefit consumers with cheaper electricity. The Future Energy Scenarios (FES) 2019 produced by National Grid predicts that smart charging could by 2030 shift nearly 50% of EV demand away from peak times. Vehicle-to-Grid technology, where electric vehicles provide power back to local networks, presents an opportunity for EVs to be a significant electricity storage resource.

Next year we intend to mandate that all new private chargepoints must have smart functionality and in 2018 we invested £30 million to support vehicle-to-grid technology. The Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce reported in January 2020, making 21 proposals on how we can maximise the uptake of smart charging and ensure the energy system is ready for electric vehicles.