East Lothian, Scotland – BT Group has installed its first EV charge point powered from a street cabinet, marking the first phase of trials which could lead to the wider upgrade of cabinet units across the UK. The charger, which is powered by a BT Group owned cabinet traditionally used to store broadband and phone cabling, forms part of a nationwide pilot by the business’ start-up incubation hub Etc., designed to address the shortfall in public EV charging infrastructure.
The first charger has been installed in East Lothian, Scotland, for use by local residents, who will be able to charge their electric vehicles at no cost until 31st May as part of the pilot. The pilot will focus next on West Yorkshire, with ambitions to scale up to 600 trial sites across the UK. EV drivers can use the charge point with ease by downloading the trial app from the App Store or Google Play Store.
The app is designed and developed by the Etc. team in conjunction with EV drivers and includes the features they most want to see, such as visibility of EV chargers across the UK, alongside real-time pricing, availability and charge speed, the ability to start, stop and monitor charge sessions via the app and to filter by connector type, kW speed and charging network.
