HOW to improve electricity capacity will be a key part of increasing the amount of charging points for vehicles in Ceredigion.

Discussions were held this week about the strategy and action plan for installing electric vehicle charging points across the county with Welsh Government funding available.

Members of Ceredigion County Council’s thriving communities overview and scrutiny committee heard that there was up to £420,000 available to install the points in public car parks and council depots.

This is to support the authority’s “commitment to reducing carbon emissions from the transportation and travel sector.”

At the meeting on 27 July Cllr John Roberts said the council could put in many points but the electricity was needed to run them, referring to a situation with a solar farm that “cannot feed into our grid system because it would collapse.”

He said there were also petrol stations that had requested charging points but were refused on the grounds it would impact the supply to surrounding homes.

The need to look at all ways of increasing decarbonisation was highlighted.

Highways corporate manager Phil Jones acknowledged the grid capacity issue, adding the strategy is a “small part of a larger picture.”

The strategy states: “There will need to be around 16,000 chargers in Ceredigion in 2025 and around 49,000 in 2030.”

In 2021 there were 300 registered ultra-low emission vehicles registered in Ceredigion – 174 battery electric vehicles, 118 plug-in hybrids and the remainder unknown.