TotalEnergies and SSE launch UK charging JV

Paris-headquartered oil and gas firm TotalEnergies will partner with UK power form SSE on an EV charging joint venture (JV) to be branded Source that will focus on the UK and Irish markets. The new business has a target of up to 3000 high-powered 150kW+ charge points across the two countries over the next five years.

The charge points will be grouped into 300 hubs “in prime locations in and around urban areas”, the firms say, and will be powered entirely by renewable energy. Construction on “several” of the hubs is already underway, with others under development, as existing projects from the two partners will be folded into the new JV.

Source is targeting a 20pc share of the charging market.  

“This is a great opportunity to extend our network in Europe and stake out a key position as a reference high-power charging player,” says Mathieu Soulas, senior vice-president, new mobilities at TotalEnergies. “We want to offer our customers — passenger cars and fleet alike — a nationwide, ultra-fast and reliable charging service. This development also contributes to our integrated power strategy in the UK, combining renewable and flexible power generation capacity, trading and marketing of low-carbon electricity available 24 hours a day.”

In the past seven years, the French oil major has struck more than 50 deals and partnerships around building up an integrated electricity business, including investments in renewable and distributed generation, power purchase agreements with customers, so-called ‘virtual power plant’ aggregation of micro-generation, battery storage, grid interconnection, electricity trading, electricity procurement software, retail power businesses and EV charging.

Just on charging specifically, it bought G2mobility in September 2018 and Time2plug in December 2023 in its home French market, Blue Point London in the UK in September 2020, Charging Solutions in Germany in November 2020, and Wenea in Spain in January 2024 in Europe, as well as Blue Charge in Singapore in July 2021. It has also expanded its European network through winning tenders, such as in Madrid in March last year and, later in 2023, securing the rights to install more than 1,100 high-power charge points in Germany.

The firm now boasts over 64,000 charge points globally, with its Source London network comprising 2,600 of these in the UK capital. Its ambition is to operate more than 1,000 high-powered charging sites across Europe by 2028.  

Ready to pounce?

One aspect of partnering with SSE is that TotalEnergies’ fuel distribution network is notably less dense in the UK and Ireland than in northwest Europe, offering it fewer of its own sites for installing neighbourhood or highway charging (see Fig.1). But a longer-term strategy could also be in play.

London-listed SSE is one of the few UK power generation and retail businesses that is not already owned by a larger European group — unlike peers such as Eon UK, EdF Energy or Scottish Power. And TotalEnergies, while it has a significant presence suppling power, and gas, to some 300,000 UK industrial and commercial customers, it does not have residential customers, unlike in France.

There is likely to be material synergy in the future charging landscape between having customer relationships at a household level and EV charging, especially as vehicle-to-grid technology achieves scale — as discussed in EV inFocus' white paper on the future of European public charging earlier this year. So the partnership with SSE could potentially be a precursor to the French oil major making a play to acquire the UK utility.

The firm’s mix of onshore and offshore wind farms, hydro-electric generation, electricity transmission and distribution networks, flexible generation, solar and batteries, as well as its customer business and existing EV charging network, should offer a good fit with TotalEnergies’ 5GW+portfolio of UK offshore wind projects, including the operation 1.1GW Seagreen windfarm and projects under development such as West of Orkney (2GW) and Outer Dowsing (1.5 GW), as well as the firm’s North Sea gas production and gas-fired generation.

SSE lays claim to “significant experience in the development and rollout of EV charging infrastructure across the UK and Ireland”, including this month’s launch of a major EV charging hub in Dundee, Scotland, and the upcoming launch of its first hub in the Republic of Ireland, at Lough Sheever Retail Park in Mullingar.

Interestingly, if TotalEnergies is considering a future play for SSE, the new JV has received a blessing from the UK’s newly elected Labour government. “It is by working together with industry that we will be able to boost consumer confidence through widespread, reliable electric vehicle charging — and achieve our shared goal of getting more electric vehicles on the road,” says Lilian Greenwood, minister for the future of roads in an administration that would have to decide whether to call thew deal in should the Parisian heavyweight swoop for one of the few remaining UK independent energy utilities.