PHEV/EV Charging

Well, who cares about Ofgem, CAMC must be right. No apologies for being political but if no.10 can do it so can CAMC. !!

Thanks for asking the question Chocolate Trees, 

The reply I got from CAMC recently to various questions I had raised and now eventually answered with more wooleyness!

“Thank you for your patience whilst we took a closer look at some of your specific questions, with regard to Electric Vehicle Charging. As a membership Club we try to be fair in all we do, however there are some situations that are very complex to manage in the way we would ideally wish to and so sometimes a simpler, more arbitrary approach is required until we can implement the longer term ideal.

Please see below some further responses to your questions;

First you have not answered my question that you are charging twice for electricity, once through the pitch fee, and again another £9 if I choose to use this electric for a battery charger. I believe this is illegal and I’m sure Ofgem would not approve - the charge is there as a service provision charge and 100% optional - you can use the Club's service or charge off site and pay the rate applied by other local providers, many retailers may well be subsidising the charge as you're shopping with them. We are simply trying to put in place an interim measure until such time we can install a metering solution. This isn't a double charge as someone who isn't charging their vehicle is not placing the site infrastructure, and overall site energy requirements under the same pressures and demands as someone who is charging their car.

Also as a landlord you are not allowed to make a profit out of reselling electricity for more than you pay for it. Charging £9 for a PHEV with a battery capacity of 10 kWh or an EV needing a 10kW top up, you will be paying 90p/kWh, considerably more than the club will be paying and considerably more than the going rate for ev charging. - until we have a metering solution, we aren't in a position to understand what the requirements are for every user (battery size / range left / charging capacity / other power requirements of your outfit, internally and externally) As a hybrid vehicle owner you have the capability to engage your fuel engine to take you to a charge station and choose not to use the site power, infrastructure system we have set up for touring only. In many ways we are encouraging this to prevent too much demand on the site system.

You mention commercial charges as being between 40 and 60p/kWh. I use pod point who charge between 22p and 26 p/kWh for rapid 50kW dc chargers and between 0p and 26p/kWh for 7kW ac chargers. - This is a good question, but not one that we can easily answer at this stage. Every provider will have a different approach based on the cost of the power to them and maintenance of the infrastructure. Generally when its free it is being subsidised by the provider as they expect you will spend money in their retail outlet, it seems this is shortly to be clamped down on as its costing too much as many are not shopping with them. The extreme rise in cost of electricity makes this unviable for the future - the reality is it's never free, so for the Club to do this would mean the rest of the membership subsidising by increasing prices

You state that the club has calculated the average amount of electric used by a pitch per day, what is this please? Also what price per kWh has been used to calculate the add on to the pitch fee for electric? This is a commercially sensitive rate and it's not just our power cost but also impact on the site infrastructure and also penalty we can incur for exceeding our preset limit.

Who are the club’s providers for the dedicated 7kW chargers at Cayton, New Forest and Coniston and how much do they charge? You seem to be saying this could vary daily? We are saying these charges are the same as you see out on the charging network UK wise, and reflect a commercial rate, not just of power, but install, equipment, extra supply charges and commercial tariffs applied, and each retain the right to respond to changes that energy suppliers are pushing down. The prices won't be changing daily but as costs change then we will update the pricing to members - likely to be on a half yearly basis and this does mean prices could go up or down.

Also in the winter months, outfits will use their heating during the day and overnight to keep the occupants warm, so no opportunity to charge evs overnight. The Club is working to roll out two solutions - dedicated EV charging station which give flexibility to choose the amount of energy you want and pay for it directly, and also adding paid for on pitch metering, as then if a pitch is empty and you wanted to plug in and trickle charge from that this would be feasible. This is an interim solution to protect the Club from ever increasing costs and demands on our infrastructure.

I am sorry I am unable to give any other clearer answers at present, but can assure you we are working towards a fairer solution and to be as sustainable as possible. We are also working to provide information so members know where local charging stations are, but this is under review and is an ever changing picture so hopefully in most instances you would not be left without choice, and modern apps like zapmaps already provide this.

Kind Regards,”

Yeah, it is a bit dismissive. But I see their point. It boils down to if a touring caravan on a tourer site is a “domestic setting” or not - and also - if that matters. I have gone back to Ofgem for that clarification as I did ask about it the 1st time round but didn’t get an answer. 

My contact is out till next week, so have a short wait to see if they have any details.

Oscarmax, the plot thickens

At New England Bay the price difference varies between £4.00 - £5.90, why a smaller difference than New Forest?
This doesn’t make any sense. I think it’s fair to say that heating an outfit will be the biggest demand for electric.  The price difference on all sites with non electric pitches is more in the summer peak season when less electric will be consumed (low heating demand) but higher in the off peak autumn/winter season when more electric will be used (high heating demand). 
Also more northerly (generally colder) sites have a smaller difference than more southern (generally warmer) sites?

Taking New Forest as an example. In summer the price difference of £8 will buy 23kWh of electric (based on 34p/kWh) but in winter at New England Bay the price difference of £4 will buy half that!