Electric vehicle charging site use falls after tariffs

Use of electric vehicle (EV) charging points in West Lothian dropped by two thirds last month with the introduction of tariffs for drivers.

Peter Rogers, energy and climate change manager, told the environment and sustainabilitypolicydevelopmentand scrutinypanelthedropwasnot unexpectedbutthenumberof users was likely to rise as more people buy electric cars.

Almost all neighbouring authorities have either introduced or reviewed tariffs for EV charging.

In a report to the panel, Mr Rogerssaid:“Theintroduction of tariffs for the use of public chargershasledtoasignificant drop in network utilisation.”

Committee saw a drop in usage of EV charging stations from 33 per cent in January to 11 per cent in February when the charges were introduced.

In January there were 8363 charging sessions with 1776 unique users. In February this dropped to 3496 sessions and 1616 unique users.

Mr Rogers added: “As anticipated, the implementation of overstay fees has had a significant positive impact on the availability of charging facilities and officers will continue tomonitorusageoverthecoming months.

“This information has also been provided to the consultants developing an infrastructure plan to consider as part of theircalculationsinrelationto future infrastructure.”

A number of authorities have either implemented or reviewed their tariffs recently. WestLothianCouncil’scurrent tariffs are 30p/kWh for standard/fast chargers and 40p/ kWh for rapid chargers.

East Lothian recently introduced a peak and off peak charging trial.