Gridserve and Moto have opened the first high-powered EV charging hub in Wales. The advanced Electric Hub, part of the Gridserve Electric Highway and located in Swansea, initially boasts six 350kW high-power charge points, with the option to add six more.
Each ultra high-powered charger can add up to 100 miles of range in less than ten minutes. Gridserve further claims the Electric Hub located at junction 47 on the M4 at Moto Swansea marked a “step change” in Wales since it has one of the country’s lowest numbers of public EV chargers. The Government’s EV Charging Strategy for Wales commits to delivering 4,000 rapid chargers over the next decade; however, just 3% are already installed.
Cue in Moto and Gridserve. When announcing their public charging advance in the UK, the companies had included remoter areas such as Wales or Cornwall from the onset. Gridserve today added it was “actively looking at further sites in Wales” to develop its so-called Electric Hubs and Electric Forecourts.
For Moto, CEO Ken McMeikan confirmed their “ambition to open Ultra Rapid Charging Hubs at all of our Motorway Service Areas over the coming 12 months and are delighted with the progress that our partnership with Gridserve is making. We launched our first EV Hub with 24 Ultra Rapid chargers at Moto Rugby last year, and EV drivers have loved it, we are super confident we’ll see the same level of success here at Moto Swansea.”
In today’s update, Gridserve added over 20 Electric Hubs – each consisting of 6-12 x 350kW ultra high-power chargers – are due to open at motorway services across the UK by the end of Q2 2022.
At the same time, the company continues to upgrade the Electric Highway network, which it inherited from Ecotricity when acquiring the green energy provider in June 2021. Moto had also been a founding partner to Ecotricity’s advance back then. Since the acquisition, Gridserve says it has invested “tens of millions of pounds” to develop the new Electric Hubs and replace the 300+ existing motorway chargers it took on from Ecotricity.
In addition, the company also progresses plans to deliver more than 100 Electric Forecourts across the UK, with sites at Gatwick Airport and Norwich reportedly in construction. Gridserve opened the UK’s first Electric Forecourt close to Braintree, Essex, in December 2020. These flagship sites are significantly larger, featuring up to 24 HPC stalls and battery buffers to guarantee ultra-rapid charging at all times. Gridserve in earlier statements was confident these stations would become capable of handling 500 kW charging capacity eventually, also for buses, trucks and other commercial vehicles.
