Political perspective GRAEME CAMPBELL, SENIOR POLICY OFFICER, TRANSPORT SCOTLAND Fit for the future Growing Scotlands public electric vehicle charging network Having a comprehensive public electric vehicle (EV) charging network that meets the needs of households, businesses and visitors will be vital in growing a prosperous green economy and a cohesive, fair society. Since 2011, the Scottish government, through its executive agency Transport Scotland, has provided more than 50m to expand the ChargePlace Scotland Network. This model relies on all 32 of Scotlands local authorities, and a range of third-party and private-sector organisations, owning chargepoints linked to the ChargePlace Scotland back office. That back office function is delivered through a thirdparty contract that is procured and funded by Transport Scotland. The network now provides more than 2,200 publicly available chargepoints across rural and urban Scotland. It is by far the largest network in Scotland and has undoubtedly contributed to the ever-increasing uptake of EVs in the country, which now stands at more than 40,000. It is also a major reason why Scotland has the highest number of chargepoints per head of population in the UK outside of London. One of its benefits is that it has enabled simple, country-wide access to a comprehensive network of public chargepoints through a single RFID card, mobile app or by phone call. So whats changing? Transport Scotland has drawn upon the infrastructure investment expertise of Scottish Futures Trust to look at how the public charging network can be financed and grown at the scale and pace required to meet Scotlands ambitious net zero targets. Its clear from this work that relying wholly on public funding to grow the network is unsustainable. In July 2021, Transport Scotland and Scottish Futures Trust published a joint report highlighting the opportunities to leverage the skills, expertise, resources and investment from the private sector through a partnership approach with Scotlands local authorities.* At the beginning of this year, the Scottish government also published its draft vision for Scotlands public EV charging network and announced a new 60m Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund.** The vision sets out the key areas underpinning the development of a worldclass, people-focused EV charging network, building upon the lessons learned and benefits of ChargePlace Scotland. It signals that Scotlands public charging network needs to be largely financed and operated by commercial providers and that we need to transition towards this. The Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund anticipates 30m of the overall funding coming from private sources. The new fund does not intend to intervene in areas of the market where the private sector can go it alone and will instead make public funding available where commercial investment on its own would be unviable. This heralds the next stage in Scotlands approach to growing the public charging network, opening up opportunities for new chargepoint owner/ operator models. Partnership will be critical, as will the leadership of Scotlands local authorities in creating the conditions to make private investment work Partnership will be critical, as will the leadership of Scotlands local authorities in creating the conditions to make private investment work. To kick-start this, Transport Scotland is funding all 32 of Scotlands local authorities this year to develop EV chargepoint strategies and infrastructure expansion plans. These will help define local and regional infrastructure and funding requirements, and preferred models of delivery. More information on the approach can be found on Scottish Futures Trusts website: bit.ly/PNSept22EVCN *bit.ly/PNSept22SEV **bit.ly/PNSept22CEV 43 15:23 PN Sept 2022 pp42-43 Political Perspective.indd 43 22/08/2022 09:52