The government must urgently address a smart appliance regulation, to prevent forms of demand-side flexibility such as electric vehicles (EVs) from being blocked from providing flexibility.
The Association for Decentralised Energy (ADE) is calling on the government to remove a retained European Union law which demands that all EV charging points have a separate display at an additional cost of around £200.
The association said that the government’s Electric Vehicle Smart Charge Point Regulations of 2021 contain conflicting standards to the retained EU law the Measuring Instrument Regulations of 2016, which was created before EVs became commonplace.
The 2021 regulations state that the owner of the charging point must be able to view their consumption data but can do so using a smart app or web page. It adds that the information must be accurate to within 10%, which Alastair Martin at flexibility aggregator Flexitricity said is not achievable.
The regulations do acknowledge that the metering points may have to comply with the 2016 regulations, which states that any meter that is used for trade must have a display which must be accessible without tools.
Meanwhile, Elexon has produced a code of practice which requires no additional device and an accuracy of 2%, which Martin said device manufacturers can deliver, but as EV charge points are not exempt from the 2016 regulations they must comply with the more stringent requirements.
In a submission to the Energy Security and Net Zero committee, the ADE said: “Unfortunately, the older retained EU law conflicts with the requirements of the EV Regs and mean that even when your charger complies with the 2021 EV Regs, it may not be allowed to participate in demand side flexibility markets because of requirements within that retained EU law.
“Therefore households, businesses, and early adopters of smart technology, often assisted by government grants, may be prohibited from using those specific assets for the purposes of flexibility.
“The differences identified would be like writing a piece of legislation where you say ‘all mobile phones must be able to make calls’ and setting out standards for that, but failing to mention within that legislation that if you ever want to actually make a call, your phone has to comply with a whole set of older more stringent regulations.
“Government, through the EV Regs, Energy Act, and EV Smart Charging Action Plan clearly want customers to be able to use low carbon technologies for demand side flexibility but these somewhat untargeted regulations threaten that goal.”
Martin said that if EV charger manufacturers are forced to add an additional display to comply with the law and allow EVs to be used for flexibility then this will jeopardize the UK’s export market, as the additional equipment is not required elsewhere. Homeowners are unlikely to be willing to spend the additional £100-£200 each to “just get out of the blocks”, he adds.
“There are a number of organisations working really hard on it, including the ADE and the Energy Technology Group. It’s a legislative bind that arose out of the smart charging regs and some other legislation and a lack of joined up government.
“If you want to establish this market at an early stage with firmly established credible and comprehensible processes that customers understand, you do it with asset metering, and that’s what this metering problem is getting in the way of.”
The ADE said the solution to the issue is amending schedule 2 of the retained EU law to exclude these device specific meters, and then establish “fit for purpose and modernised regulations that sufficiently protect the consumer, allow them to be properly rewarded, and uphold to the government’s net zero commitments”.
It added that the upcoming consultation on smart regulations would be the “perfect opportunity” to advance this amendment.
There are three different government departments which are responsible for the legislation: the Department for Business and Trade, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (desnz), and the Department for Transport.
“Desnz and the Department for Transport have a well-established connection between them called the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles, but the Department for Trade aren’t involved so they don’t have context for the problem they are essentially maintaining,” said Martin.