Thursday, November 7, 2024
Infrastructure and TechnologyLatestNews

Be.EV opens new Sheffield hub

Charging network Be.EV has opened a new nine-bay ultra-rapid electric vehicle (EV) charging hub in Sheffield to tackle air pollution in the city.

The chargers are located in the Parkway Central Retail Park, on a key trunk-road between Sheffield city centre and the M1, which sees an average of more than 66,000 vehicles per day. This site, which is less than three miles from the city centre, aims to encourage residents to transition to EVs and improve the region’s health.

The hub’s ultra-rapid Kempower chargers are capable of charging up to 150kW and add up to 165 miles of range in a 20-minute stop. It comes as part of Sheffield City Council’s Clean Air Zone plans to reduce deaths and illness associated with air pollution, with EV charging infrastructure contributing to the strategy.

It comes as Yorkshire and the Humber has some of the least charging provision in the country, with only three regions in the UK having fewer ultra-rapid chargers. The new hub currently has nine ultra-rapid bays, but has infrastructure to accommodate 20 charging bays in total.

The charge points are accompanied by three labelled waiting bays, giving EV owners clear spaces to queue if the hub becomes busy. There are also two marked accessible bays, one of which is fully PAS 1899 compliant, to make this charging hub as easy-to-use as possible for disabled users.

Be.EV – which is backed by £55 million from NatWest and KfW-IPEX Bank, and majority owned by Octopus Energy Generation.

Asif Ghafoor, CEO of Be.EV, said:

“The air pollution deaths statistics in Sheffield are shocking and need to be drastically reduced. The Clean Air Zone introduced last year is a great start, but encouraging people to switch to EVs by giving them access to convenient public charging is the key way to finish the job.

“Charging infrastructure will go a long way to driving this. We need to make it as easy as possible for drivers to make the shift to driving EVs, and this ultra-rapid charging hub at Parkway is a step in the right direction. 

“Fleet drivers make up a significant part of the UK’s motoring community and they need convenient charging more than most. It’s a key priority of ours to make Be.EV synonymous with the fleet community.”

Image courtesy of Be.EV

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