Roaming MPANs

Project Overview

Electric vehicle adoption is accelerating across the UK, but for around 40% of households, charging at home is simply not an option. Without off-street parking, many drivers must rely on public charging, which is often more expensive, less convenient and unable to offer the same benefits as a domestic electricity tariff.

Roaming MPANs is exploring a new approach to make public charging feel more like charging at home. By securely linking a driver’s home electricity account to participating public charge points, customers could access their existing tariff, including smart and off-peak rates, wherever they charge.

The project will investigate whether this innovative model can create a fairer, more affordable and more accessible charging experience while supporting efficient operation of the electricity network.

Key Activities

• Explore how domestic electricity tariffs can be securely applied to public EV charging.
• Assess the technical, commercial and regulatory feasibility of a Roaming MPAN solution.
• Evaluate customer benefits, including lower charging costs and greater access to smart tariffs.
• Investigate how the approach could reduce reliance on costly network interventions, such as unlooping supplies.
• Assess opportunities to encourage off-peak charging and increase network flexibility.
• Quantify the benefits for consumers, charge point operators and electricity networks.

By removing one of the biggest barriers to EV ownership, Roaming MPANs has the potential to make electric vehicle charging simpler, fairer and more affordable for everyone, regardless of where they live.

Expected Benefits

Roaming MPANs has the potential to make electric vehicle charging fairer, cheaper and more convenient for millions of households that cannot charge at home. By allowing drivers to access their home electricity tariff at participating public charge points, the project could remove one of the biggest barriers to EV adoption.

Key Benefits

• Lower charging costs by giving drivers access to domestic and smart EV tariffs when using public charging infrastructure.
• Fairer access to EV ownership, ensuring households without off-street parking can benefit from the same energy costs and incentives as those with private driveways.
• Reduced network costs by lowering the need for expensive interventions such as electricity supply unlooping and network reinforcement.
• More off-peak charging, helping shift demand to times when networks have spare capacity and renewable energy is plentiful.
• Better use of public charge points, increasing utilisation of existing infrastructure and improving the customer experience.
• New opportunities for flexibility services, supporting a smarter and more resilient energy system.
• More predictable revenues for Charge Point Operators, helping encourage future investment in charging infrastructure.
• Accelerated EV adoption, supporting lower carbon emissions and improved air quality.

Together, these benefits could create a more equitable EV charging ecosystem, enabling more people to switch to electric vehicles while supporting a lower-cost, smarter and net-zero energy future.

Discovery Progress Highlights

Check here regularly for recent progress and highlights.