Vehicle recharging “HyperHub” plan for Union Terrace car park.

Part of the Union Terrace car park would be converted into an electric vehicle recharging site under Council plans.

Three 50kW Rapid chargers and three 150kW Ultra-Rapid chargers would be installed on a central charging island. Four double headed 7kW Fast charge points would also be installed across 8 parking bays in the main car park, adjacent to the HyperHub.

The proposal, which involve the loss of about 20 ordinary parking spaces, is being discussed next week. It replaces a plan to establish the facility on Bootham Court. This site was subsequently abandoned.

The project is expected to cost £900,000

York’s EV charging strategy includes the deployment of Ultra-rapid charging hubs, known as HyperHubs, at strategic locations around the city. £1.35million funding was awarded by North Yorkshire LEP in June 2020 to develop York’s public charging network, of which £550k was allocated for the construction of a 3rd HyperHub located near the city centre.

There are no immediate plans to introduce “on street” charging facilities in terraced areas. These facilities have been provided in several City’s making use of the power supply to streetlights or bollards.

Two other HyperHubs are planned, located next to Monks Cross and Poppleton Bar Park & ride sites. An update can be viewed by clicking here

Electric vehicle charging policies received a panning by Which magazine recently

They said that

Accessing public chargers was unnecessarily complicated and that universal access was needed
Disparate rapid charging plugs were confusing
Charging by time was also confusing
As was the many variable charging speeds
Brand specific networks were considered to be unnecessarily

They called on the government to introduce a standardised approach.

The York Council could usefully add its voice to the calls for more regulation.

Work starts on region’s largest EV charging hubs

City of York Council is delighted to be working in partnership with Evo Energy to start construction on the largest HyperHub sites in the region.

Artist impression of new hyper hub at Monks Cross. — Artist’s impression of new Hyper Hub at Monks Cross.

The council is investing £2.2m to develop sites, next to Monks Cross and Poppleton Bar Park and Rides, into high quality, high speed electric vehicle charging hubs.

Each HyperHub site will consist of solar PV canopies, battery energy storage, 4 Rapid and 4 Ultra Rapid electric vehicle chargers.

The chargers will help the region to support the next generation of electric vehicles which have significantly larger battery capacities and support higher charging speeds.

Construction on both sites has started, and will be led by EvoEnergy. The new sites at Monks Cross and Poppleton are scheduled for completion in June 2021.

City of York Council is a pioneer in the use of innovative green technology. Over recent years, the council has lead the way in providing a range of public charging facilities for electric vehicles to help reduce carbon emissions and improve local air quality thanks to EV’s eliminating NOx emissions at the point of use.

In addition to generating low carbon electricity on site through PV arrays, all of the electricity supplied from the national grid will be generated by renewable sources providing users with low carbon electricity and ensuring that no NOx emissions are emitted from electricity generation.

The council has successfully secured £1m of European Regional Development Funding and £800,000 from the Office for Low Emission Vehicles, along with £400,000 of the council’s own capital funding to install the first two HyperHubs.

This comes just at a time when the nation prepares to transition across to using electric vehicles with the announcement of a complete ban on sales of new petrol or diesel cars by 2030, with plug-in hybrid sales to end in 2035.

When the council first developed their EV charging network in 2013, there were far fewer plug-in vehicles on the road. However, over the past few years, electric vehicle technology has progressed massively and these vehicles have now become a viable option for many everyday road users.

What is Included?

City of York Council has been able to secure funding from the Office for Low Emission Vehicles and European Regional Development Fund.

This largely covers the cost of building the two HyperHub sites, along with a solar canopy system (100kWp) which will generate green electricity and keep users dry and a battery storage solution (348kW / 507kWh), meaning that the council will be able to maintain a lower tariff than commercial operators can offer.

Both of the HyperHub sites will contain 4x Ultra-Rapid (150kW) and 4x Rapid (50kW) vehicle chargers, helping to support the uptake of modern EV’s that have larger battery capacities and are capable of Ultra Rapid charging.

The development of this system will encourage private car owners, taxi drivers and business users to make use of the new facilities, therefore, improving the city’s overall carbon emissions.

Both of the HyperHub sites are started construction in January with both sites due to finish in June 2021.

This investment is just the beginning of the journey for City of York Council as they revitalise their electric vehicle charging network in 2021 ready to support the transition to EV.

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Electric vehicles? Where next in York

With the sale of new internal combustion powered cars scheduled to end in 9 years time, there is increasing pressure to extend the recharging network in York. Battery power (or maybe in the longer-term hydrogen fuel cells) will soon be the only option available.

The Councils budget does includes plans to invest over £5 million in making its own fleet all electric. It includes a £1.8 million infrastructure programme and says it is doing so to ensure that the Council is “carbon neutral” by 2030.

A report being considered today, says “a key element of the investment is to develop an electric charging infrastructure at the (Council) depot, satellite depots and home charging to ensure full charging capacity of all vehicles at all times can be met”.

In recent years, the Council has had a poor procurement record on vehicle renewal. The result has been a refuse collection fleet which, by last summer, had become chronically unreliable. They need to be more decisive, and realistic about delivery timescales, in the future.

The Council has already announced plans for a “HyperHubs” project to provide “next generation electric vehicle charging infrastructure at Monks Cross and Poppleton Bar Park & Ride sites”. The Monks Cross HyperHub is due to be completed by April 2021 and will include the first Ultra Rapid chargers in the City.

The Council says that design work is continuing for a third City Centre HyperHub following the decision to move the site from York Hospital “which had insurmountable access issues”. The hub is due to open in the autumn of 2021, although details of the location have not been released.

One possible site is the Piccadilly multi storey car park which has been under-used since the Council switched off the advance car park space availability systems 8 years ago. If it were designated for electric vehicles it might be possible to reopen the tunnel link from the nearby Castle Car park.

See the source image — Some lampposts in London are being fitted with recharging sockets

One of the ongoing issues to be addressed with charging bays is their reliability and occupancy limits. Recharging to 80% capacity takes about 30 minutes on most new electric cars. When charged up, the vehicle owner must return to the vehicle and free up the space for other users.

Home charging on the other hand is more convenient and can take place overnight if a £400 home box is fitted. That option is not available for those who park on the street.

The Council will spend another £550,000 next year in renewing lampposts. As part of the programme LED fittings will be used. These reduce power use. This offers the opportunity for recharging sockets to be included in the specification.

*The Council want to ban cars from York City centre*

No such proposals have been made in York although the lamppost charging option is available in parts of London, while Oxford is trialling the provision of ducted access to adjacent properties where off street parking is impossible.

Access to lamppost sockets is available for only a limited time so, where streets have a parking deficit already, reserving parking bays for charging will only exacerbate the problems.

There is little sign of Councillors addressing these issues.

Instead many have simply said they oppose the use of personal transport in the urban area however the vehicles may be fueled.

Council to borrow over £20 million more.

The York Council will consider tomorrow adding over £20 million to its debt burden.

The cost to taxpayers of paying interest and redemption charges on the extra borrowing is put at £1.4 million a year.

The Council says that the costs of the new Knapton forest will now be met from “external sources”. It is therefore switching that expenditure into buying electric vehicles and associated charging facilities at a cost of over £5 million.

*The Knapton Forest will now be funded by third parties according to the York Council*

£100,000 will fund an “access barrier review”. This is thought to be a response to a section of the cycle lobby which is opposed to the use of safety barriers where they slow cycle movements. While an audit of infrastructure standards and repair works on the York cycle network is long overdue, concentration of limited resources on the relatively trivial barrier issue reflects poor prioritisation.

£1.1 million will be spent repairing Lendal Bridge while £1 million is reserved for the – more than slightly opaque – “COVID recovery fund”.

Probably the most controversial proposal is the plan to cut another £3.2 million from highways maintenance. This is the fund which is used to reconstruct road and path surfaces. It is a long-term investment which gives carriageways a 30 year plus lifespan. In turn this minimises the risk of frost damage. The large number of potholes which we have seen on the highway network recently suggests reconstruction should be a high priority.

*All parties promised improved highway maintenance standards at the last local elections*

. The cut in the highways maintenance budget is partly justified by officials who point to the £5 million being paid by central government for the resurfacing of Tadcaster Road (for the second time in less than a year). The resurfacing will not provide any additional benefit for road users.

Money is being transferred from highways resurfacing to fund the Council’s £2 million contribution to the Fordlands Road flood alleviation scheme. This is the scheme which should have been completed, and funded, as part of the recent improvements to the A19 in Fulford.

The report points out that there could still be further costs to be added to the budget as work on York Central, the Guildhall, Castle Gateway and dualling the outer ring road proceeds.

A copy of the proposed programme can be viewed by clicking here

£1.25 million contract let for electric charging points in York

According to the Councils web site,

“the contract will cover the purchase of various EV charging infrastructure assets and associated support services. The intention is to procure £1.25M of assets and services from this contract initially, and the contract will give us to option to procure up to £5M of assets and services in the future”.

The successful tenderer was Chargemaster Limited

The Council says, “a competitive tender was carried out through the ESPO framework between 14th Aug and 4th Sep 2020.

Of the £1.25M of initial purchases, £800k will be externally funded by a successful bid to the YNYER LEP. The remaining £450k will be funded by City of York Council”.

“An Executive Decision has already been made to undertake EV infrastructure works; a record of this decision is available.

Executive approval for the required budget was made during the budget process and has already been assigned to the Transport Capital Programme.

As such, there are sufficient Executive decisions in place to permit an Officer Decision on the signing of the contract.

This reasoning has been reviewed by Legal Services and Finance who support this approach, on the understanding that purchases from the contract beyond the initial £1.25M amount will require additional decision making authorisation.

No details of the other tenders received have been published

9 months before new refuse collection vehicles arrive in York

Electric Vans Archives - Electric vehicle news by Fuel Included

As attention focuses on the major backlog in waste collection that is developing in York, another “behind closed doors” decision has been taken to order 12 new refuse collections vehicles.

Two of the 12 will be electric vehicles. These vehicles cost approximately 2.5 times more than their conventional counterparts but are cheaper to run. They have range limitations.

There is only 1 supplier of these types of vehicle in the country and they say that January 2021 is the earliest that delivery can be expected.

The 12 vehicles will cost £3 million in total.

A further order is expected to be approved later in the summer bringing the total investment to over £6.6 million

Much of the Councils waste management fleet is well beyond its normal lifespan. This has resulted in unreliability with missed collections a feature of the last 18 months of operation. The COVID crisis has simply magnified the problems.

The Council has never satisfactorily explained why it did not continue its annual vehicle replacement programme to ensure that overall reliability levels remained acceptable.

It appears that indecision – prompted perhaps by a hope that more electric options would become available – led to unacceptable delays in placing orders.

The Councils internal scrutiny and audit processes should have revealed the risks associated with such inaction.

Sadly that process didn’t seem to work.

Quite what quality of service residents can look forward to over the remainder of this year remains unclear.

York’s new green fleet plan

City of York Council is set to transform it’s fleet of vehicles and become a leader in the fight to reduce the city’s carbon emissions with an ambition to be carbon neutral by 2030.

The council will be taking a report outlining the full details to an Executive meeting on 19 March.

This includes reducing the carbon emissions from the council’s fleet (of 535 vehicles under 3.5 tonnes) by a third.

The fleet is valued at £15.3 million and includes 180 vehicles that are under 3.5 tonnes and 153 which are currently due to be replaced over the next three years. Together they emit a total of 1,763 tonnes of CO2 every year.

Under the new proposals, the council would like to transition to a green /electric fleet over a four year phased period.

This will include:

Year one: securing the infrastructure to enable an electric fleet to operate at council sites. Ordering three electric waste vehicles.

Year two: services that are ready for an electric fleet now can make the change as the infrastructure will now be in place.For those services that require some changes to the way they operate, a third of the vehicles will move to electric.

Years three and four.Those services that need a phased approach will be progressed to a 100% electric as quickly as possible.

The financial implications of moving towards an electric fleet would vary depending on the size and type of vehicle and would need to factor in the infrastructure costs to support the green fleet too at council sites.

In order to achieve this, a fleet replacement programme is proposed which will be considered on an annual basis as part of the annual capital programme. However, as option three is the preferred option – this is estimated to cost in the region of £2.22 million.

The council has already implemented a number of measures to address these challenges including introducing a clean air zone for buses and the transition of the Park & Ride fleet of buses to electric double decker buses will be completed this year.

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Electric vehicle charging strategy for York revealed

City of York Council is set to introduce a new electric vehicle (EV) charging strategy which will transform and accelerate EV take up across the city.

A report detailing the proposal will be taken to a public Executive meeting on 19 March for approval.

This follows the authority declaring a climate change emergency in 2019 and approving plans to work towards becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

If approved, the council will introduce Fast EV chargepoints to at least a minimum of five per cent of all its long stay parking bays in council owned car parks by 2023.

This will cost circa £800,000 and will be subject to successful external funding bids and reviewed as part of the development of the Local Transport Plan later this year.

To complement the enhanced fast charger network the council is also developing two Hyper Hub sites which will provide state of the art rapid and ultra-rapid facilities. Subject to securing further external funding, a third site is also being developed.

A part of the proposals will be to ensure it offers an equal opportunity for all users (with on street and off street parking) and to ensure that tariffs are set at a fair rate.

The current tariff of 15 p/kWh, hasn’t been revised since it was set in 2013, so a key element of the strategy is to review the tariff price point.

The council’s proposed tariff approach will take into account increases in electricity and running costs to ensure that the network is financially sustainable. During 2020/2021 it is proposed to increase the tariff to 20 p/kWh for fast chargers and 25 p/kWh for rapid and ultra-rapid chargers. All new rapid and ultra-rapid units will allow bank card payments for the same 25 p/kWh fee.

Regular users will have the option of signing up to a subscription Network where they will pay a monthly fee in return for lower usage tariffs.

Tariffs will be reviewed every year and electricity supplying the chargepoints will be part of the council’s energy contract which purchases renewable energy.

New conditions will also be introduced to ensure that users of EV bays are using them principally to charge their vehicles. Enforcement action could be taken where a vehicle is using a bay and is not plugged into the charging point. Time limits could also be imposed.

Frequently Asked Questions:

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Newbury Avenue bungalows set to get first tenants

The Council has provided an electric vehicle recharging point in the car park of the new bungalows which are reached completion in Newbury Avenue.

The bungalows look very smart, albeit completion of the work is behind schedule. The original decision to knock down the garages which were on the site was controversial because the York Council failed to address the chronic lack of off street parking lay-bys in the estate. The parking problem has continued to grow

Electric charging points are set to become a standard feature of new homes in the City.

The Council will consider shortly a report which looks at how electric vehicle charging point availability can be improved across the whole City.

Amongst the issues considered are the difficulties for electric car owners who live in terraced streets with no off street space available.

One suggesting might see charging points added to street lighting columns – although the costs of implementing such a programme would be huge.

York compares well on vehicle charging point availability

An interactive map published this weekend by the government indicates that York is in the top 20% of areas providing vehicle charging points.

It is similarly placed in a table showing rapid charger availability.

The figures are slightly less good for the number of charges per 1000 head of population

No information has been published on charger reliability or the average waiting times that motorists face when they need to charge their vehicles.

Click here to access the map