Ubitricity to expand Liverpool network

Liverpool City Council has appointed Ubitricity to install a network of 300 on-street electric vehicle chargepoints, with the locations chosen by residents and businesses.

The additional chargepoints are set to treble Liverpool City Council’s existing network of 150 charge points to 450. This would make Liverpool the authority with the third largest public charging network in the UK, behind London and Coventry.

The roll-out comes as part of a twopart project, which will see Ubitricity take over the repair of Liverpool’s existing charging infrastructure and then rollout more chargepoints to help enable residents to make the switch to electric vehicles.

The new chargepoints, which are installed directly into existing street lamp columns, charge at a speed of up to 5kW and take just under two hours to install.

The roll-out is planned for key residential and commercial locations, allowing residents to easily charge pure-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles on the street where they live. Liverpool City Council is looking to address disparity in EV adoption and take a major step towards achieving its carbon net zero target by 2030. Liverpool’s goal is to make EV charging accessible for everyone, with a particular focus on residents who do not have access to private off-street parking and charging. The roll-out is led by community requests, with the Liverpool City Council receiving more than 10 requests a week for new public chargepoints.

After Liverpool City Council declared a climate emergency in 2019, it unveiled its 2030 Net Zero Liverpool Action Plan which laid out a roadmap to tackle its carbon footprint. One of the key aims of this plan, which also includes developing the city’s cycling and walking infrastructure, was to reduce carbon from transport in Liverpool.

Cllr Dan Barrington, cabinet member for climate change and highways for Liverpool City Council. “ The fact that the roll-out is being led by community requests means the points are going where the demand is needed most which means they’ll be getting maximum usage. Hopefully demand will grow meaning more charging points need to be installed.”