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All new street lights (as of a couple of years ago) have to have charging points built-in, (or perhaps it's every alternate one or whatever) which I think is good, and also a good way of ensuring a gradual increase rather than trying to set arbitrary targets each year and do random disconnected things to meet them.


> All new street lights (as of a couple of years ago) have to have charging points built-in […]

If anyone wants to see an example of light pole charging, the Fully Charged YT channel had an episode of one example:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaEhBjt1ls

See also pop-up chargers for streets without poles:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frkw6aurVUY


Do you have a reference for this because it seems unlikely to be true. The difference in wiring guage between a 100w light and a 3kw is very significant.

Edit: this article talks about one street in London being the first to have car chargers built in an is from March this year.

https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/new-energies/europe/analysis/...


It is true. Have an example load of pictures: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=street+light+electric+car+charging.... My city (not London!) has had them for >3 years that I remember.

The main difference is that (a) each street light is actually ~ 10W, and (b) the wiring is massively over-specified. Quoting from a local authority source for street lights, [1], the minimum conductor area allowed (for the 220-270 VAC supply) is 6 mm^2, for a total thermal current limit of around ~55A. If you have, say, 100 lamps on a single "ring main", you still only have a power draw of ~1 kW, where the cable is rated to 55 V x 220 A ≈12.1 kW minimum.

[1] https://www.durham.gov.uk/media/3075/Street-Lighting-Specifi...


Tesla's new fast chargers support 250kw peak per car. So even 12kw is nothing to write home about. How many poles is that shared between? If it's more than 4 then it's not really enough. I suspect the reason the conductor is over specified though is to avoid voltage dropping outside of the 10% range it's allowed.


What's the carbon footprint of all the extra copper needed for the heavy gauge wiring?


I was under the impression that you're not guaranteed 3Kw from everywhere, probaby just a trickle charge overnight...


3kw is a trickle charge. Even the previous generation leaf had a 24kwh battery. From flat to fully charged would be overnight. 60kwh is more like what you need for similar range to a petrol car.




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