Wednesday 28 December 2022
90% of hotels are not yet ready for EV drivers, new study discovers
This is preventing them from being able to capitalise on opportunities to increase revenue created by growing numbers of customers driving EVs.
The study, which looked at hotels across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland found that 9 in 10 hotels are yet to install any EV charge points for their customers, and those that have chargers usually offer just two.
This is despite battery electric vehicles (BEVs) accounting for more than one in 10 new vehicle registrations in July.
Of all the cities featured in the analysis, Edinburgh was found to offer the most EV charge points relative to the number of hotels, with 20% of hotels listed on booking.com offering EV charging as a facility. Bristol was a close second with 19%, followed by Belfast with 17%. London (7%), Cardiff (7%) and Liverpool (5%) came bottom of the list.
The research found that if hotel owners want to keep up with the rapidly growing EV market, at least one in every 10 parking spaces should be an EV charge point. This number will then increase to one in five over the next five years as EVs become more commonplace.
Adam Hall, Director of Energy Services at Drax, said: “If hotel owners want to keep pace with their competitors, they should invest now in good EV charging facilities. It will help to attract new customers as well as better serve their existing ones.
“More and more people are searching for hotels with EV charging facilities, and this is only going to increase in the next few years. Without them, hotel owners risk losing on bookings to other accommodation in the area.”
For further information on installing EV charging and the services Drax can offer supporting this, visit: energy.drax.com/electric-vehicles/
To help hospitality businesses find an EV charging solution that works for them, Drax has created a series of help guides for the following industry sectors:
Average charge points and connectors per sector (based on a representative sample size of 10%, using publicly available data on ZapMap):
- Hotels – 2 charge points, 3 connectors
- Pubs & Restaurants – 1 charge point, 4 connectors
- Zoos – 4 charge points, 7 connectors
- Theme parks – 2 charge points, 2 connectors
- Leisure Parks (cinema, bowling etc) – 3 charge points, 5 connectors
- Museums – 2 charge points, 4 connectors
Average dwell time per sector, based on a survey of 500 consumers:
- Hotels – 2 nights
- Pubs & restaurants - 1-2 hours
- Zoos – 3-4 hours
- Theme parks – more than 5 hours
- Leisure parks – 2-3 hours
- Museums – 1-2 hours
Average percentage of hotels with EV charging facilities, based on data from booking.com:
- 20% Edinburgh
- 19% Bristol
- 13% Sheffield
- 12% Leeds
- 11% Glasgow
- 11% Manchester
- 10% Birmingham
- 7% London
- 7% Cardiff
- 5% Liverpool
Media contact:
For any media enquires please contact Jamie.Wilson@wearebottle.com
About Drax
Drax Group’s purpose is to enable a zero carbon, lower cost energy future and in 2019 announced a world-leading ambition to be carbon negative by 2030, using bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) technology.
Drax’s around 3,000 employees operate across three principal areas of activity – electricity generation, electricity sales to business customers and compressed wood pellet production and supply to third parties. For more information visit www.drax.com
Power generation:
Drax owns and operates a portfolio of renewable electricity generation assets in England and Scotland. The assets include the UK’s largest power station, based at Selby, North Yorkshire, which supplies five percent of the country’s electricity needs.
Having converted Drax Power Station to use sustainable biomass instead of coal it has become the UK’s biggest renewable power generator and the largest decarbonisation project in Europe. It is also where Drax is piloting the groundbreaking negative emissions technology BECCS within its CCUS (Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage) Incubation Area.
Its pumped storage, hydro and energy from waste assets in Scotland include Cruachan Power Station – a flexible pumped storage facility within the hollowed-out mountain Ben Cruachan.
The Group also aims to build on its BECCS innovation at Drax Power Station with a target to deliver 4 million tonnes of negative CO2 emissions each year from new-build BECCS outside of the UK by 2030 and is currently developing models for North American and European markets.
Pellet production and supply:
The Group has 17 operational pellet plants and developments with nameplate production capacity of around 5 million tonnes a year.
Drax is targeting 8 million tonnes of production capacity by 2030, which will require the development of over 3 million tonnes of new biomass pellet production capacity. The pellets are produced using materials sourced from sustainably managed working forests and are supplied to third party customers in Europe and Asia for the generation of renewable power.
Drax’s pellet plants supply biomass used at its own power station in North Yorkshire, England to generate flexible, renewable power for the UK’s homes and businesses, and also to customers in Europe and Asia.
Customers:
Drax supplies renewable electricity to UK businesses, offering a range of energy-related services including energy optimisation, as well as electric vehicle strategy and management.
To find out more go to the website www.energy.drax.com
