“If you’re sitting on land, generate an income and increase footfall by having chargers on your site. There’s no catch or hidden play here. In this age where stakeholders and investors care about sustainability, it’s a win, win, win.”An accountant by training, Adrian Keen spent time at KPMG, but fell in love with renewables and the idea of reducing emissions when he joined solar and energy storage firm Anesco in 2010.It was also there that he met many of the people that he now works with at InstaVolt, which he joined in 2017 as CFO, before becoming CEO in 2019.InstaVolt is backed by private equity firm Zouk Capital and is on track to become the largest owner-operator of rapid DC electric car charging stations in the UK.How can we improve the reputation of the UK charging network and encourage more people to go electric?It all starts with confidence, because if you don’t give drivers that, they won’t make the transition.In the case of InstaVolt, our background is in renewable energy, and we set up our charging network in 2016, because we could see electric cars coming over the hill. They still felt very niche, but we had a lot of car enthusiasts on the team, so we were aware of the Nissan Leaf and had noticed the Tesla fans getting very excited.Having made the decision, perhaps our biggest advantage was that we started with a clean sheet of paper, so were able to ask what we really needed to do to make this fly. And, let’s be honest, because we were setting up a business, what we needed to do to make people choose our network over others.We said to ourselves, it’s got to be easy to use, with as few touch points as possible. It’s got to be reliable, which for us meant doing everything ourselves, rather than farming stuff out to a third party to look after. We couldn’t for the life of us understand why nobody was using contactless payment. And last but not least, we looked around at existing chargers and saw that they tended to be around the back of hotels or in grotty corners of council car parks, so we decided better locations would be crucial.What problems did you encounter?The trouble we had initially was that it was very hard to find people who wanted to work with us. We’d say: ‘We’ll fund everything because it’s our network; we just want to lease some space on your site, then drivers will have an extra incentive to come, and they’ll spend money with you while their cars are charging.’And the response was typically: ‘Electric cars, what are you talking about? They’ll never take off.’But fortunately, there were exceptions that gave us a footprint and allowed us to start collecting data on charging behaviour patterns. For example, we had an early partnership with Booths supermarkets in the North West, and another with Bannatyne Gyms, which worked brilliantly, because dwell times at gyms and rapid chargers are similar.And that’s a really important lesson: to be a success it’s crucial to put the right sort of chargers in the right locations in terms of matching dwell times. So, a 3kW charger at a motorway service station is silly, and a 50kW rapid charger at a long-stay car park is a bonkers investment decision.Fortunately, now there’s a much greater appreciation of what we bring, so we’re often able to work with the developers of new food and beverage locations, whether it’s a McDonalds or a Costa or whatever, to make sure we’re alongside those amenities from the start.We recently asked What Car? readers to rate the different charging networks, and InstaVolt scored much higher for reliability than most of its rivals. Why are some big players struggling with something so crucial?I think it’s very easy to get caught up with exciting things like the next strategic step, and neglect your existing network, whereas we’re careful to make sure we get the basics right. In our network operations centre we’ve got two massive screens that show in real time the health of the network. Plus, the sensors we have in the chargers mean we’ll often know there’s a problem before the customer does, and can take pre-emptive action.Even with the tiniest niggle, we’ll stop what we’re doing and fix it. And it is that obsessive attention to detail that you need.Do you think that the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the UK is realistic; that we can expand the charging network quickly enough?There’s no shortage of private investment. That’s been a huge gamechanger in the last few years.So, what else do we need? Power. In our experience, that’s not a big limiting factor either, because we understand the grid and are able to engage with the DNOs [distribution network operators].Okay, there might be times when we have to settle for six chargers on a site when we’d ideally have eight, but I think chargers are going to be much more widely distributed than petrol and diesel pumps anyway, meaning people can just park and charge their cars opportunistically.Instead, it’s land that’s the big issue. Yes, we’ve got some great partners with us, but you’ve still got loads of brands who are sitting on their hands and aren’t coming to the party. Maybe they see it as too early. Maybe they’re hoping someone comes in and offers them a silly rent to operate on their sites. I don’t know.But I can tell you that it’s not just private companies; the local authorities are being really slow to engage with the private sector, which is a problem when they control things like short-stay car parks in town centres.So, that’s the call to arms: if you’re sitting on land, generate an income and increase footfall by having chargers on your site. There’s no catch or hidden play here. In this age where stakeholders and investors care about sustainability, it’s a win, win, win.What are your expansion plans at InstaVolt?There are currently around 730 InstaVolt rapid chargers, either in service or under construction, but we have a pipeline of literally thousands more, thanks to those big partnerships with the likes of McDonalds and Costa. I also love the idea of working with small businesses and little farm shop operators. So, by 2032 we’ll have 10,000 rapid chargers in the ground. It’s not pie in the sky. We can see where all 10,000 will come from.Is there more that car makers can be doing?I don’t think so in terms of the infrastructure space. But I do think there’s some education to be done at the dealership level.I’ve gone into dealerships myself, as a test, and said ‘I’d quite like an electric vehicle, but I don’t have off-street parking’, and I’ve been told ‘it’s not really for you’.Maybe it’s lack of incentive, maybe it’s lack of knowledge, but we need sales people to better explain the pros, and not just steer anyone without a front drive into a diesel.Can charging ever be as quick and convenient as filling up with petrol or diesel?In terms of charging speeds, we don’t really buy into the arms race of 300kW charging. It needs big, expensive grid connections. Most cars, when you look at the changing curves, can’t hold or even sustain that.Frankly, if you’re on a 200, 300, 400-mile journey, you need a decent stop just for well-being purposes. Two hours in you need a rest, and a pee and a coffee, so you don’t need to charge in 10 minutes; 20 minutes is fine.And the danger is, if you start putting 350kW chargers in, you pay for that. And ultimately that means that the customer has got to pay for that. So, I see 150kW to 175kW being the sweet spot. But it’s horses for courses: there will always be a location where 50kW is entirely appropriate and there’s no need to go any faster because the dwell times don’t warrant it.That’s where we do use our data to help us make decisions. We’ve even swapped chargers around on occasion.What do you think of the Tesla trial in the Netherlands, giving owners of other electric cars access to some of the chargers in its Supercharger network?I think everybody expects me to see this as a bit of a threat, but it’s not. Right now, we need more people to see the positives of electric vehicles, and I think that most people who hear about this will think it’s a good thing, because they’ve heard of Tesla.Frankly, Tesla has so much attention that anything it does that is painted as positive is great for uptake.It will be interesting to see, though, if it alienates Tesla drivers, who have paid a premium for their cars knowing it includes this exclusive service, but now have to share it with X, Y and Z.You talk about falling in love with renewables. Do you consider yourself a businessman or an environmentalist first?I’m a realist not an activist. It’s a business. But you can be in business and be a capitalist and not be a bad person.I’m not trying to preach to anyone, but I want to do something that I find meaningful. Somebody else doing something completely different might find that just as meaningful, but for me, this allows me to get up and go to work and feel like I’m making a difference.Somebody once said to me that when you’re saving, the first penny you save works the hardest. And likewise, with energy efficiency and emissions I think that the things we do now will be the most impactful.I do still eat a bit of meat. I don’t beat myself up too much if I have to take a flight to be somewhere. But incremental differences like putting in LED light bulbs and insulating our homes can make a difference, and electric cars are part of that.I think most people think the change has got to come from China or big oil companies, but the change sits with us. We are all responsible for what we do, and collectively across the nation that will add up.[/logged_in]