IN Brief:
- Shell has signed a ten-year PPA with ubitricity for electricity from the 17.6MW Iddenshall solar project.
- The Cheshire solar farm is expected to begin commercial operation this summer.
- The agreement will supply power linked to ubitricity’s 14,600 public charge points in the UK.
Shell has signed a ten-year power purchase agreement with ubitricity for electricity generated at the 17.6MW Iddenshall solar project in Cheshire.
The solar farm was initially developed by Anesco. Shell first set out plans to acquire the project in 2022 as part of a wider initiative to acquire 100MW of solar capacity from the developer.
The agreement will help meet the power demand of ubitricity’s 14,600 public charge points in the UK. A significant portion of the charging network’s UK electricity demand is expected to be supplied by the solar project once it enters commercial operation.
Until Iddenshall starts generating electricity, ubitricity will receive power from Shell Energy Europe’s other UK solar assets. The ubitricity network is currently backed by Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin, matching electricity used across the network with equivalent volumes of power from UK renewable energy projects.
The deal connects renewable generation procurement with charging-network operation. Public EV charging requires reliable grid access, suitable connection capacity, charger availability, maintenance systems, payment infrastructure, and electricity sourcing that can support operating margins across different utilisation levels.
Solar output will not match charging demand hour by hour without storage or wider portfolio balancing, but a long-term PPA gives the charging operator a clearer renewable procurement structure. It also provides a route for generation output to be matched against a defined electricity demand base.
ubitricity’s local authority charging work has continued to expand in London, including a Bexley lamppost charging deployment that took the borough’s public on-street network to 500 charge points. Details of that rollout are available at electricalnews.co.uk.
The Iddenshall agreement reflects a broader shift in charging infrastructure finance. Operators must manage hardware deployment, utilisation risk, connection costs, wholesale electricity exposure, maintenance, payment systems, and public-sector relationships. Electricity sourcing becomes a core operational function as networks grow and energy volumes increase.
For solar developers and asset owners, corporate and infrastructure PPAs provide routes to market that can reduce merchant exposure and support financing. For charge point operators, long-term procurement can improve cost visibility, although final economics still depend on utilisation, tariffs, balancing costs, retail competition, and grid charges.
The UK EV charging market is splitting into several infrastructure classes. Ultra-rapid strategic road sites, destination charging, fleet depots, workplace installations, and lower-power urban on-street networks all have different load profiles, connection requirements, and maintenance patterns. ubitricity’s network is heavily associated with on-street public charging, where residential access and local distribution infrastructure are central to deployment.
As EV adoption increases, more charging operators are likely to treat power procurement as part of infrastructure design rather than a separate energy contract. The PPA does not remove the need for grid reinforcement or charging-network investment, but it strengthens the link between renewable generation and the electricity demand created by transport electrification.
The Iddenshall agreement therefore sits within a more integrated model for EV infrastructure. Charging networks are no longer only collections of hardware in public locations; they are distributed electrical loads with procurement, balancing, network, and asset-management requirements attached.
