BT Group uses first street cabinet to power a charging station
BT’s first EV charger is located in East Lothian, Scotland. And the company already has a second site in mind, saying it will focus on West Yorkshire next without being more specific.
There is also no information on the charger installed, but press images show an A charger with two charging points. To use the charger, EV drivers must download the “trial app from the App Store or Google Play Store.” Charging for local residents is free until the end of the month.
“With our research showing that 78% of petrol and diesel drivers see not being able to conveniently charge an EV as a key a barrier to purchasing one, and the UK behind government-set sustainability targets, it’s critical that we start looking at existing infrastructure to drive innovation at speed,” says Tom Guy, Managing Director at Etc. and BT Group. “These trials present a unique opportunity to tap into existing assets to drive the important transition to electrification in the UK, and we’re proud to be working with local councils in East Lothian and more widely across the UK at this critical stage to play our part.”
The BT Group owns some 60,000 street cabinets. In January, it announced that it wanted to convert these distribution boxes for broadband and telephone cables into charging points for electric cars.
The cabinets are retrofitted with a charging station using “a device that enables renewable energy to be shared to a charge point alongside the existing broadband service with no need to create a new power connection.” Distribution boxes due to be decommissioned or used for broadband services with copper cables (which will soon be replaced by fibre optic technology) are considered for retrofitting.
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