Our Strategy

We have invested in the UK’s leading electric vehicle data platform, Zap-Map. This creates huge opportunities to launch products and services in the crucial area of zero-emission transport – and is also a catalyst for the sharing economy. ZAP is the go-to app for Britain’s 280,000 EV drivers, used for planning routes, identifying charge points, checking their availability and sharing power. Read more about Zap-Map in our 2019 Annual Report.

The EV market is currently fragmented and complex, but it will soon be essential for UK businesses to offer charging facilities and services. We are now offering a new solution to make it easier for businesses to install chargers and to secure available network capacity. Read about One Point below.

2019 saw the launch of One Point: our end-to-end service which supports businesses wanting to offer EV charging to their staff, customers and visitors. We ran a pilot with our customer, Watergate Bay Hotel; installing four charging points on the premises, with two more planned. Further pilot projects will be launched soon with our partners. Lessons from the pilot scheme will help us expand One Point to companies up and down the country, with the potential to integrate Zap–Pay to enable open and simple access to all One Point charging locations.

We recently completed an innovative research project with Honda, Upside Energy and Salford University. The study was designed to examine the value of ‘vehicle-to-grid’ (V2G) technology, where an electric vehicle is used alongside a special charger and other home systems: battery storage, solar panels, a smart hot water tank, and heat pumps. The technology is designed to maximise efficient energy usage, save money, and cut carbon emissions.

Our Home Innovation Trial is part of the Europeanwide BestRes project, which is researching how to better integrate renewable generation into energy grids. We provided each household that signed up to the trial with a smart hub and linked app, which measured energy usage by different types of appliance. The aim is to explore and better understand energy usage and management in the home.