The technology was trialed by the Council earlier this year and is now being expanded to further increase ubitricity’s electric vehicle charging capacity across central London. The new project will result in the largest charging network of its kind in central London. SimpleSockets will be conveniently located next to pay and display parking bays and available for use twenty-four hours a day, with a tariff of 15p (about US$0.20) per kWh of electricity (as well as additional charges).

We want to remove barriers to electric vehicle adoption by providing innovative, simple and widely available urban charging solutions at a cost well below that of running a traditional car, and by giving people more control over their total energy usage. That’s also why we’ve aligned ourselves with the government’s Clean Growth Strategy, and will introduce a V2G (vehicle to grid) charger in 2018 that will enable drivers to sell energy to the grid from their electric vehicles – ultimately generating their own clean power.

—Tom Pakenham, Head of Electric Vehicles, OVO

To access the network, users buy a cable with an inbuilt electricity meter from the service provider, ubitricity. There are two pricing options:

• Option one – buy a cable for £199 and join Ubitricity’ s monthly subscription scheme which costs £7.99 per month and charges 15 pence per kWh for electricity used.

• Option two – buy a cable for £299 with no monthly subscription and charges 19 pence per kWh for electricity used.

With both options there will be additional charges of £1 for each charging session and a charge of £1 per hour after the first 24 hours of being plugged in. These additional charges will be collected by Ubitricity and be paid to the Council. This income will be used to help maintain the equipment and potentially fund future deployments and replacements.

The Council expects all the new charging points to be operational by the end of January 2018.