Cardiff Council.

Cardiff Council engaged Osprey to install and operate 12 public open-access rapid chargers to serve the city’s busy centre, as part of the Council’s clean air and transport plans. With no funding or grant required, the chargers are positioned at key access routes into largely pedestrianized areas and integrate with Cardiff’s existing parking.

Osprey utilised our proprietary Site Selection Process (SSP), a model based on a quantitative approach that selects sites where higher consumption demand is expected. The model is a mathematical algorithm that uses geospatial and analytical data to indicate consumer demand and optimise utilisation.

Osprey’s Operations Division combined our analysis with preliminary grid investigations to ensure all identified locations had suitable and viable electricity connections for the advised infrastructure locations.

Osprey remained committed and adaptable to Cardiff Council’s specific requirements. To ensure usability, all chargers were developed with bilingual (English and Welsh) interactive displays. All promotional video content was recorded bilingually for maximum visibility to local customer base and in line with the council’s language accessibility policy. Osprey designed bespoke branding for the charge points to align with Cardiff city’s colour scheme and other council projects.

Osprey navigated the landscape challenges presented by the rollout. Cardiff has the highest tree density of any UK city. In order to preserve Cardiff’s city foliage, Osprey designed sites to accommodate this, hiring the services of an independent tree surgeon to audit the landscape and advise. The surgeon is also on site to advise contractors around navigating tree routes for digging. Certain charge locations involved accommodating Grade II listed buildings and their respective aesthetics. We relocated points of connection when required and ensured feeder pillars were in keeping visually in both location and colour.

All six charging sites were completed by mid-2021. While the sites are all in close proximity, usage has not dropped off on any of the earlier sites as more locations have been added.