Chamber and committees

Since 2013 the Scottish Government has invested over £45 million to develop the ChargePlace Scotland network, which now has 1,845 publicly available chargers. UK Government’s Department for Transport statistics show that, with 43 chargers per 100,000 of population, Scotland has the highest number of chargepoints relative to population outside of London. Most chargers can charge 2 cars simultaneously, however some rapid chargers are only able to charge 1 car at a time. It is not possible to give a total number of electric vehicles that the ChargePlace Scotland can support, but this number is much greater than the number of individual charging connections. This figure would be influenced by a wide range of factors, importantly individual charging sessions will vary in duration from well under an hour to overnight charging and in part will be determined by the state of charge as the vehicle is plugged in. A critical factor will be distances travelled and how vehicles are used over any given period as this will significantly influence their charging requirements.

The Scottish Government only hold data on the ChargePlace Scotland network, and whilst it is the largest public charging network in Scotland other providers do operate in Scotland, so will increase the total number of charging points available to the public. Complementing the public charging network, Scottish Government, through the Energy Saving Trust, have now funded over 10,000 home and business chargepoints which will make a significant contribution to supporting Scotland’s transition to zero emission vehicles.