The UK’s largest free retail charging network for electric vehicles has so far given away enough renewable energy to power the homes of almost 130,000 people.
Volkswagen, Tesco and Pod Point teamed up to provide the largest free retail charging network for electric vehicle owners across the UK.
The partnership has now hit the landmark 200th store after four EV points were installed at the Tesco superstore in Chester.
So far, enough renewable energy has been given away to power the homes in a city the size of Chester for a whole day.
Over the past 18 months, these charging points across the UK have been used 150,000 times by EV owners of all brands – providing their batteries with a combined 669 megawatts of power.
This is enough to power 1.3 million homes for one hour, or 55,750 homes for 24 hours – which should cover the electricity needs for residential properties in a town or city with a population of almost 130,000.
It is also estimated that EV drivers using the charging points have saved 374,391 kg of tailpipe CO2 emissions – the equivalent of more than 1.8 million miles driven by the average new car.
Jason Tarry, Tesco CEO UK & ROI, said:
“We’re now well on our way to achieving our ambition of installing more than 2,400 EV charging bays across 600 Tesco stores.
The 200th store is a landmark moment as we get back up and running with this programme after the Covid-19 pandemic meant we had to delay our plans.
Providing customers with charging points offers them a sustainable choice and giving them the opportunity to charge their car for free while they shop is a little help to make this easier.”
The rollout is rapidly expanding the UK public charging network and is tackling a number of locations with limited charging facilities (less than 10 chargers per 100,000) such as in Barnsley, Wirral and Wellingborough as well as previous ‘notspots’ – areas without a single public place to charge – such as Barrow-in-Furness, which now has two public charging points located at the town’s Tesco Extra store.