FOR:EV rolls out retail chargepoints in Scotland

Electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure provider FOR:EV has announced the rollout of 22 chargepoints across four retail sites in Scotland.

The chargepoints – delivering over a MW between them – will be deployed at Sainsbury’s Inverkip in Inverclyde, Toolstation Montrose, Tesco Express on Great Northern Road, as well as the Aberdeen and South Harbour Road retail park in Fraserburgh.

All four of these sites are currently run by Cedarwood Asset Management Ltd and David Samuel Asset Management Ltd, companies with an ongoing relationship with FOR:EV.

The installation of three dual charging points with six connectors at Inverkip and two dual charging points with four connectors at Montrose is now complete. Work is due to start at Aberdeen and Fraserburgh – both three dual charging points, six connectors – in the coming months.

The rapid chargers at all four sites could charge a typical EV from 20% to 80% in 30 minutes and are expected to deliver over 1MW of power between them.

FOR:EV’s business development manager, Calum Wallace, said: “Part of our mission is to provide reliable, user-friendly EV charging infrastructure across the length and breadth of Scotland. These four new hubs will bring our EV charging provision to more locations in the north-east and to Inverclyde for the first time.”

Scottish EV landscape

The EV charging infrastructure in Scotland has seen several significant developments over the past year.

For example, research conducted by EV leasing company The Electric Car Scheme found that Kilmarnock, Scotland, has the highest number of free EV charging points in the UK, with 21 stations for its 46,350 residents (4.5 per every 10,000 people).

The Scottish towns of Ayr and Stirling secured the second and third whilst Dumfries, Scotland, drew with Durham, England, for the fourth spot, as the study published in February 2024 revealed.

The Electric Car Scheme attributed Scotland’s dominance in the availability of free chargepoints to the country’s ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) scheme, which aims to create a public charging network consisting of 90% free chargepoints.

CPS was established by the Scottish government at a cost of £45 million and was awarded the contract to take full responsibility for Scotland’s public EV chargepoints in 2021.

In the same month, Raigmore Hospital in Inverness installed NHS Scotland’s first solar EV charging hub.

The solar car park (SCP), said to be the “first of its kind to be operational in Scotland,” is dubbed Papilio3 and was installed by the EV chargepoint operator 3ti. It is made out of a recycled shipping container containing 12 chargepoints able to fast charge up to 12 EVs simultaneously at 7kW, 11kW or 22kW.