Regional Electric Vehicle Unified Plan (REVUP)

Regional Electric Vehicle Unified Plan (REVUP) will deliver an innovative toolkit to support local authorities (LAs) facilitate the installation of Electric Vehicle Charge Points (EVCPs) in remote and underserved communities to avoid such communities being disadvantaged in the switch to EVs. To avoid the creation of a so-called Charge-Point Divide.

There is a demand from drivers who wish to switch to EVs and evidence from various studies including the IUK supported SOSCI project indicate that drivers without off-street parking, will consider overnight charging, within a 5-minute walk of their house. OZEV is already making funding available to LAs to support such installations, (via ORCS) but the take-up is too slow to meet current demand, let alone the 2030 target to end Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicle sales. SOSCI exploitation projects have shown that many LAs find the application and approvals process for ORCS funding is fraught with challenges and hurdles, many created by the established procedures of the LAs themselves.

**OBJECTIVES & FEATURES:** The REVUP objective is to develop a process to enable regional LAs and other public sector bodies (e.g. emergency services) to collaborate on applications to OZEV and apply for £millions to install thousands of EVCPs necessary to provide proper regional coverage. In addition to the funding applications, REVUP will help deliver a common standard for the identification, costing and installation of EVCPs -- to change the current tortuous process into one which is as simple as the installation of a new streetlight.

REVUP will use lessons learned from the SOSCI and ORCS projects to reduce and overcome the real challenges and hurdles which impede the installation of EVCPs. Preliminary discussions with some regional organisations have shown a recognition of the challenges and the need to research and develop a standard solution.

The project will also use the community interfaces and online tools which have been developed under SOSCI which will speed the delivery of a successful Guide.

**INNOVATION:** The innovation lies in the transformative business model which will:

\* Enable LAs to open up more EVCPs, close to home for the high proportion of urban residents without access to off-street parking, rural areas for residents and visitors

\* Enhance the ZEV experience for disabled or elderly users through improved accessibility. The impacts will be a reduced time to installation of public chargepoints by 50% (average 6 months) leading to 4,000 additional chargepoints by 2026\.