- bp’s public EV charging arm, bp pulse, has reached an impressive milestone in its journey to add public chargepoints to existing fuel forecourts in the UK.
- Over 170 of the approximately 311 forecourts owned directly by bp now have EV charging facilities on site.
- With bp’s ability to use existing fuel sites to add EV charging in areas that already have high footfall and on-site facilities, its ultra-fast forecourt charging rollout, which started in 2019, has seen significant growth.
bp pulse’s UK EV charging network continues to grow, through existing sites
While just over half of bp’s owned fuel forecourts now have on-site EV charging, charge points have been added to bp-branded forecourts that are dealer owned. Combine those with bp’s own sites, and there are now over 230 bp-branded forecourts with on-site ultra-fast charging, which equates to over 550 ultra-fast charging bays nationwide – not counting dedicated bp pulse charging hubs.
That fuel court transformation is taking place right across the United Kingdom, from Northern Ireland, and from Inverness in the North to Padstow in the South. It’s looking to increase the number of forecourts with charging facilities even further in the future. For sites already live, bp has also begun the process of upgrading chargers from their former 150kW units to faster 300kW units.
As a traditional fuel retailer, bp is in a unique position for public charging, able to expand into existing sites without the need for extensive planning, which typically are the perfect place to stop off as they already have on-site facilities such as cafe, convenience stores and toilets. These already exist as areas of high traffic, from city centre locations to major roads and motorways. Still, adding EV charging to these sites hasn’t been entirely without challenges such as grid constraints, but the use of battery-integrated EV chargers has overcome this hurdle.
Whilst bp is primarily operating sites which offer a mix of both fuel and electric charging, it has already converted one former petrol station into a dedicated EV charging site. Earlier this year, it removed fuel from its Cromwell Road site in West London, turning it into a new EV charging and convenience hub.
