After years of stagnation, Northern Ireland is at last seeing very significant progress around its public charging infrastructure. Rapid Charger numbers hovered around 20 in the middle of last year. Since then there has been a profound change that has seen numbers grow 5x in the last 18 months and our latest analysis shows that there are now a total of 102 DC chargers in Northern Ireland. All the details here - Significant Public Charging Progress in Northern Ireland
DC Rapid Chargers in NI Grown 5x in 18 Months
- Thread starter EVANI
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It definitely isn't cheap - and maybe I'm incorrect as I've had limited exposure to charging points having only had an EV in our household for a few months, but we were in Connemara over the summer and it seemed significantly cheaper in the South to charge than up here?
Either way, good to see that there's infrastructure progress
Either way, good to see that there's infrastructure progress
Graham
RMS Photographer
If you can't suitably charge at home, you shouldn't own an EV. This is what the manufacturers have been telling us for years now.
As someone who can't charge at home, and that gets custody of EV's several weeks a year, the growth of rapid chargers is most welcome. I used to be able to drive an EV for two days, before it had to be parked up as there was no means for me to charge it easily, and it had to have enough range left to get to the next journo.
Now I can get a weeks driving from one with usually one recharge. The time it takes is productive as I usually try and edit images in warmth of the cabin.
It seems to cost me roughly £45 for an almost empty to 80% charge, on average. It's not cheap, but it's alright for the likes of me, or for someone like a salesperson needing a quick juice when on the road.
I have found that few of the rapid actually get anywhere near the claimed power output, which is a sign the grid is far from capable. I know of a brand new garage/supermarket being built about two years ago, the grid needed upgraded to site just to power the fridges and freezers, tills and pumps etc. The idea of EV charging on site was scrapped as a result.
Regardless of this, it's still great to be able to add almost a full 'tank' locally.
- Thread Starter
- #5
The Department for Infrastructure commissioned a report from the Steer Group in 2021 which found that the vast majority of households in Northern Ireland have access to a driveway (“circa 80%”). But that also means that 1 in 5 dwellings do not have off-street parking and therefore are currently precluded from being able to charge an electric vehicle at home. The report also acknowledges a dramatic rise in urban areas, stating that “60% of households have no access to a driveway in Belfast”. Presumably there will be similarly high levels in the centres of our other towns and cities around NI. EVANI is lobby for at least a trial of these solutions.
Comparison of current ESB in NI and RoI....It definitely isn't cheap - and maybe I'm incorrect as I've had limited exposure to charging points having only had an EV in our household for a few months, but we were in Connemara over the summer and it seemed significantly cheaper in the South to charge than up here?
Either way, good to see that there's infrastructure progress
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Doesn't seem that different price wise, maybe it's misperception on my part, just felt like full charges down there were averaging €25/€30 and up here they've been bordering on £40+
- Thread Starter
- #7
Most DC chargers here do provide their advertised outputs. The BP units will definitely reduce in speed though over the day, as they are proividing up to a 150kW service from a 50kW connection or similar, via a 200kWh battery.
We find many new EV drivers do not know their car's capabilities. As you know charging speeds are depend on your battery’s SoC and temperature and DC charging speeds will always slow down as the SoC rises. A great resource to check your car’s charging capabilities (and real world range) is the ev-database.org which provides charging curves for many cars. As you can see with this BWM i4 M50 example, starting off at 50% SoC the car will only pull 100kW at a 200kW charger.
Interesting how they appear to be called different types of chargers either side of the border. For example, Ni has Fast / Rapid / HP, ROI has Standard / Fast / HP. Or does NI not have Standard and ROI doesn't have Rapid? Seems confusing for no reason other than to be confusing.
- Thread Starter
- #9
Confusing indeed. Rapid in NI is a "Fast" in RoI. Best just to think of as AC and DC, with appropriate speed ratings.