Amping it up

The newly passed Planning and Infrastructure Bill aims to get more homes plugged into the electric revolution, but what does it all mean for housebuilders, asks Peter Crush.

As morning breaks and homeowners stir, photons from a distant star smash into roof-top photovoltaic (PV) cells (ie solar panels), agitating electrons. Direct current lithium batteries, drained from the day before, begin charging up once more. Power is being created, converted and diverted, and is finding its way to the outside air-source heat pump. The electric car charging point starts donating its power to the nearby parked car. Anything else left over is destined to start feeding the National Grid.

This is a vision of the future that the government no longer wants to wait for. With an official Action Plan for the UK to create clean power (95% from clean sources) in just the next four years and an ambition to be completely net zero by 2050, a massive transformation is needed. This involves everything from generating 43-50GW of new energy from offshore wind and reinvesting in nuclear power to doubling the UK’s energy transmission network infrastructure.

But with residential homes themselves responsible for 20-30% of total energy demand (half of which is used for heating/cooling), and plans for a further 1.5 million houses to be built this parliament, it’s the 2,700kWh of electricity per year that each one needs that has been consuming government thinking.

It wants housing developers to be part of the solution and, with rapid Royal Assent given to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the expectations are clear: to create a ‘first-ready, first connected’ approach (rather than the ‘first come, first served’ approach) that sidesteps public consent for planning for new housebuilds. Not only does this prioritise the right clean power projects for quicker connections to the grid, but it also paves the way for the establishment of more transmission network infrastructure projects (with a sweetener that any residents living within 500 metres of one will be eligible for bill discounts of up to £2,500 over 10 years).

The eve of EV

Integral to this are measures that will also, in its words, “streamline the approval of street works needed for the installation of EV [electric vehicle] public charge points by removing the need for licences where the works are capable of being authorised by permits [currently works licences are needed]”.

As such, experts appear to concur that the requirements of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill move things on from already existing regulation (Part S Building Regulations – see EV charging – what we know). But because the approval process for new EV chargers in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill applies to public roads, there is a suggestion that this has been done to actually ‘remove’ some burden from housebuilders too – many of which had feared having to incorporate electricity storage solutions (ie lithium batteries) as part of the parallel Future Homes Standard provisions.

This standard was finally published in March (the provisions of which apply from 2028), and just as headline-grabbing as the provisions that were included (such as requiring 40% of the footprint of a house to have PV cells) were the ones not included. And the biggest of these was the dropping of proposals to mandate the installation of battery storage in new homes.

But is this actually the full picture? What are the likely energy implications of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill for developers? Harry Capewell is Director at EVFM, which designs, delivers and operates EV charging across residential developments’ residential blocks. He argues the detail is much more nuanced: “For housebuilders the implication is clear: EV charging must now be integrated into a wider energy strategy from the outset, and that it should be considered alongside grid capacity, on-site generation, storage and low-carbon heating.”

An issue he spots however, is that the legislation is unclear around the question of what he calls ownership vs operation – especially when charge points are needed to be on land that is public realm. “In many residential schemes, EV infrastructure could become an ongoing management burden – something developers/housebuilders will find is difficult to recover through service charges. At the same time, over-specified grid infrastructure is often factored into a scheme to mitigate risk, but this can also undermine a development’s viability.” In other words, who pays upfront and on an ongoing basis for this electric connectivity?

It was undoubtedly due to cost burdens that the Future Homes Standard dropped homes having to have their own batteries – despite intense lobbying from the likes of Solar Energy UK – which has claimed not including in-home energy storage represented a “glaring omission” in conversations around green houses. Protestations from homebuilders that this alone would add £3,000 to £10,000+ to the cost of each new home clearly won through. But despite the Planning and Infrastructure Bill’s shifting of the responsibility of access to electricity to the kerbside (therefore public authority responsibility) rather than people’s personal driveways, other cost issues haven’t been solved.

Capewell says: “Treating EV charging as a bolt-on is unlikely to be viable at scale without implementing systems that are operationally and financially sustainable over the long term. A fully funded, owned and managed model that removes friction is what’s probably needed to allow developers to deliver compliant, future-ready infrastructure without inheriting long-term liabilities.”

EV charging – what we know

Part S Building Regulations came into effect in 2022 and required all new buildings (and old buildings being re-purposed into new flats) to include EV charging facilities (a change in policy that was predicted to see 145,000 more charging points being created across the UK every year). Under these regulations, all initial housebuilding designs must now account for EV charging infrastructure and all developers must plan for cable routes to future-proof developments, as well as consider load balancing and managing electrical load.

Last year the government also consulted on making changes to permitted development rights (or PDRs) to allow for further building works to be carried out without the need to submit a planning application. Although these were mostly concerned with EV charge points in non-domestic, off-street car parks, there were also provisions allowing for the installation of cross-pavement solutions (a system that enables a safe passage between a home charge point and a vehicle parked on the street) and associated domestic charge points. Here, it was proposed that those seeking to install a cross-pavement solution would not be required to submit a planning application (although streetworks permissions would still be required), and that a PDR would allow for the necessary works to install a cross-pavement solution (such as an electrical outlet or an upstand) to be undertaken by the relevant highways agency.

In other related regulation, in 2025 the government dropped the need for planning permission to be sought for homes to have a heat pump installed within one metre of a neighbour’s property – a rule that research by Octopus Energy found meant 27% of its own customers would hitherto not be able to install a heat pump. Those benefitting include the 23% of the housing stock that is currently terraced housing.

High voltage

Further cost implications are also likely to occur, thanks to changes to BS 7671 (also known as the IET Wiring Regulations), which comprises the UK’s national standard for the design, erection and verification of electrical installations.

Applying to both domestic and commercial buildings, and amended to pre-empt the pace of change in energy storage smart systems, the latest change – ‘Amendment 4’ – creates a new section around stationary secondary batteries [requirements for electrical storage systems used to supply installations, supporting the integration of renewable energy and grid resilience]. This is as well as rules for functional earthing and bonding and Power over Ethernet, the latter of which allows for smart buildings. In particular, the new rules formalise requirements for protection, ventilation, fire segregation and testing that previously existed only in best practice guides. The rules will affect anyone responsible for creating and installing solar storage, standalone home batteries, EV chargers with back-up storage or commercial battery systems. They become mandatory in October of this year.

Gary Boon is MD of Thermatic Homes (soon to become Thermatic Renewables). It works with social housing developers and housebuilders to deliver large-scale solar PV and heat pumps, and advises on charge points. He says: “The government is introducing all these new standards and legislation, but I don’t think it has thought as hard about which parts of the supply chain are going to deliver this.

“The biggest problem for developers will be the cost differences in planning for more electric installations across the board – be it charge points, PV and heat pumps – and the organisation of the Distribution Network Operator notifications for them.”

But there is good news – that by at least mandating planning for charging (either outside, as part of a development or eventually inside homes) the second electric revolution will need addressing from the outset.

Capewell says: “More broadly, I am starting to see a shift towards developments being designed as integrated energy systems. EV charging, on-site generation, storage and demand management must be considered as a co-ordinated solution – reducing cost, managing risk and improving outcomes for residents.” Boon also suggests that developers could create new revenue streams by being the appointed people who service and look after these technologies.

Capewell adds: “The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is a positive step in recognising that EV infrastructure and grid capacity are fundamental to housing delivery. However, in practice, the main constraint for developers is not planning permission for charge points but delivering scalable EV charging within limited electrical capacity while maintaining scheme viability.

“While the bill’s provisions on public charging are welcome, the biggest delivery challenge remains within private residential developments. Addressing this requires not only policy support, but commercially viable delivery models aligned with how developments are funded and managed.”

Image credit | iStock