Solar to play central role in new Centrica EV offering

Centrica has today unveiled a new electric vehicle offering, with solar and battery storage set to play a central role.

The energy giant’s Business Solutions division has launched ‘EV Enablement’, a new package aimed at businesses looking to electrify their fleets and install EV charging infrastructure. 

But rather than just install EV charge points, Centrica is to pair the infrastructure with on-site generation such as solar and battery storage in a bid to offset the impact electric vehicles are likely to have on power demand. 

Centrica said it had launched the offering after research conducted by the firm found that while more than three-quarters of businesses it spoke to were planning to introduce EVs, just 43% of them had considered their impact on energy demand. 

Jorge Pikunic, global managing director at Centrica Business Solutions, said that the adoption of EVs is “no longer a questions for tomorrow”. 

“For businesses, the transition to EV is a big opportunity to become cleaner, more sustainable and more efficient. 

“We believe distributed energy technologies will be key to supporting the cost-effective roll out of EVs, reducing the need for costly grid upgrades and new centralised generation capacity.

“Our offer has been designed to be fully flexible so that, whatever stage businesses are at on the EV journey, we can help make the transition simpler, faster and more affordable,” he said. 

EV Enablement will see Centrica conduct project scope, design, installation, operation and maintenance of EV infrastructure, and financing for additional energy projects such as solar and storage can also be offered. 

All work is to be carried out under Centrica Business Solutions, while a driver-facing app and software suite will be provided by Driivz, the Israel-based EV company Centrica invested in last year. REStore is to be tasked with infrastructure optimisation. 

Centrica’s offering further enforces a growing trend for companies to pair EV charging infrastructure with other technologies, battery storage chief among them. Both Gridserve and Pivot Power have both unveiled multi-billion-pound programmes to complete EV forecourts alongside utility-scale battery storage projects, the former of which also intends to pair its facilities with large-scale solar farms.