Electric Vehicles: ‘Driven to Disruption’?

The electrification of road transport is rising swiftly up the policy agenda. It will have profound impacts across the electricity value chain. This paper explains and evaluates the electricity supplier offerings emerging for electric vehicles (EVs), driven largely by consumer demand, and how policy and regulatory frameworks need to adapt to accommodate them.

The ongoing crystallisation of government policy to decarbonise transport, and specific existing incentives for EVs provides increasing confidence for electricity suppliers to develop EV-related offers, even if there is currently a lack of a prescriptive policy roadmap that bridges between today and 2040.

A key challenge is the adaption of electricity market rules, regulations, licences, and codes to be able to accommodate the possibility for many millions of EVs that consume power and potentially provide service back to the sector at disparate locations, but with no certainty of such an eventually occurring.

The need for regulatory and policy clarity to accommodate electricity supply offerings tied to EVs grows with the sophistication and complexity of offerings.

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