Electric vehicle charging firm pledges huge increase in power points by 2023

Electric vehicle charging technology company, Franklin Energy, has assumed responsibility to deliver EV charging solutions across Liverpool City Region’s entire network.

The ‘Recharge Network’, currently includes 52 public charge points at 21 sites across the city.

This agreement with the combined authority marks an important development for the Liverpool-based company.

Managing director, Robert Byrne, said: “This is gives us massive scope to further roll-out our brand and our portfolio of EV services regionally, nationally and to other local authorities.

“Liverpool City Region has a target to become carbon neutral by 2040 and we are committed to playing our part in helping deliver this. Carbon emissions from transport account for approximately 23% of greenhouse gas emissions and by providing a public charging network at scale, we are able to enhance the proposition and transition to EV for all drivers.

“Those who can’t charge at home now have a viable and affordable alternative to choose a plug-in vehicle over a conventional car.”

Sites across the city include council-owned car parks, leisure centres, rail stations and hospital sites.

The existing network consists of fast AC charging running at 7.4kW – Franklin plans to add charging points to existing sites at 22kW, and then enlarge the network with 22kW fast chargers where possible.

Franklin is aiming to install a further 100 public charging points in the next 12 months and 500 charging points by 2023, introducing approximately 85% fast chargers with the balance being rapid DC charging.

Drivers making the switch to EV are increasing at a dramatic rate.

April 2020 electric car sales continued to sell well with market share reaching 32%, despite other car sales being down more than 97% due to COVID-19, while the Tesla Model 3 was the best-selling electric car in the UK.

Rob added: “Increasingly EV is being recognised as the smart option for drivers in general.

“With more models being introduced, more competitive costings, longer ranges and increased access to charging points, it’s an obvious choice.

“Availability of public charging points has been an ongoing prevalent issue, however, projects such as this will open up public charging and give drivers increased comfort and confidence in their vehicle choice, knowing they can stay charged throughout the day.”

He added: “Franklin has partnered with Scottish Power Energy Networks (SPEN) under their CHARGE project to look at optimum locations to deploy charging infrastructure.

“Together, they have modelled locations based on data layers from traffic flow, available grid capacity, right through to EV ownership dwell time and future adoption rates. The objective is to have sufficient spatial coverage across the region so that EV drivers are never more than five miles from a public charging point on our LiFe network in order to encourage uptake and remove range anxiety.

“We are continually exploring new ways to enhance our service and product provision to improve the potential of EV driving and the experience of existing drivers.

“The outcome of R&D projects such as this will be applied to all of our public and private sector partnerships, advising and supporting customers as their EV roll-out continues.”