Proposal 14 – Promoting the benefits of smart charging

28 November 2019

An independent body to campaign for the benefits of smart charging.

Proactively raising awareness of the benefits of smart charging will be important to secure consumer buy-in. While much of this will, and should, be undertaken as part of individual companies’ marketing activity, there is merit in coordinated consumer-facing activity.

Consideration should be given to the following points:

• An independent body should be appointed to lead consumer-facing communications activity;
• The focus of this body should be on promoting the benefits of smart charging to consumers, myth and jargon busting and providing marketing tools that can be used and adapted by the private sector; 
• The body should also undertake ongoing market research to ensure that messaging and content is aligned with users’ motivations to participate in smart charging, rather than based on assumptions of what drives behaviour;
• The organisation(s) responsible for delivering advice on smart charging – as part of Proposal 15 – could also be tasked with promoting the benefits of smart charging. An alternative option is for the communications body to be separate and wholly or partly funded by interested private sector partners, such as the energy and automotive sectors;
• A new body could be created or the remit of an existing body or campaign (e.g. Go Ultra Low, Smart Energy GB, Citizens Advice, Energy Saving Trust) could be extended; 
• Government should coordinate the implementation of the proposal, passing on responsibility for the campaign and research activities once the body is in place; and
• The Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce proposes that the work be undertaken in parallel with the implementation of Proposal 15, meaning that an organisation should be appointed and an independent body set up by the end of 2021 / start of 2022. The launch of the campaign, however, should be in line with market availability of smart charging offerings and be kept open for review, to ensure that EV drivers are able to meaningfully act on the messaging.