- The UK Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 were enacted last November, which means that several of the specific regulations are reaching the end of their one year grace period.
- After the 24th of November next month, the majority of specific policies will become a legal requirement.
- While this has created extra work for CPOs, many are already ahead of the game, implementing the requirements far ahead of the legal deadline.
Multiple UK policies becoming mandatory from next month
When the UK regulations were put into force last November, only one policy area became instantly legally binding: Pricing transparency, with CPOs now required to clearly showing the charging price per kW – something which the vast majority of CPOs already had in place. Next November, however exactly one year after the regulations were put into force, four more specific policies will become legal requirements for operators. The first is contactless payments, which will be required on all new charge points with power above 8kW and all existing chargers with power above 50kW. This does mean that for some slower existing destination chargers, EV drivers may still have to download specific apps rather than simply tapping their payment card or phone.
CPOs will also have to include a free-of-use 24/7 helpline connection at charge points, while they will also have to meet the Open Charge Point Interface (OCPI). Additionally, a 99% uptime requirement will come into place for rapid chargers in particular – that is, over a one year average, a rapid charge network’s network must remain usable for 99% of the time. However, there is some opposition from CPOs against this 99% uptime legislation, as we discovered at the UK’s most recent EV SUMMIT.
Looking towards November 2025, one final piece of the Public Charging Regulations, which had a two year grace period, will also come into place. This is the ‘roaming’ part, in which CPOs must allow customers to pay through their charge points through at least one roaming provider – for example, Octopus Electroverse.