Tesco’s Kirkwall superstore has become the 600th store in the UK to have EV charging points installed, the supermarket said. It also announced that it as beginning to install fast chargers, meaning shoppers will be able to charge up in minutes.
Tesco said that, since it teamed up with Volkswagen and Pod Point to launch the network in 2019, the charging points had provided 43,218kWh of energy to date - enough to power more than 4,000 homes for a whole day. The installation at the store on the remote Scottish island of Orkney means that the programme has now seen more than 2,500 EV charging bays installed at 600 Tesco stores across the UK over the past three years – with all electricity used to charge cars generated from renewable sources. The network also includes 129 rapid chargers.
The partnership was announced to improve the charging infrastructure as the UK prepares for an electric future. According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, at the end of February 2023 there were 693,307 battery-electric cars in the UK - an increase of 610% on the number of BEVs in 2019.
