en.Wedoany.com Reported - UK broadband access provider Openreach (BT) has signed a new cooperation agreement with electric vehicle charging company Source (jointly owned by SSE and TotalEnergies), gaining access to Source's growing network of "ultra-fast charging hubs" across the UK to support its transition to electric vehicles.
Openreach manages the UK's second-largest commercial vehicle fleet, with approximately 23,000 vehicles. Its goal is to upgrade the "vast majority" of its diesel-powered vehicles to electric by the end of March 2031, in line with its net-zero emissions target for the same period. To date, the company has deployed over 7,000 electric vehicles, with numbers continuing to grow.
To support the transition, Openreach has installed over 4,000 charging points at operational sites and engineers' homes for overnight charging. However, around one-third of engineers cannot install home chargers, making charging a challenge. To address this, the company is actively building other partnerships, such as collaborating with First Bus to allow engineers to charge at its depots, and recently reaching an agreement with Sainsbury's to utilize its national EV charging network. The agreement with Source aims to further expand these collaborations.
Source's UK sites are equipped with ultra-fast chargers of up to 300kW, which it claims "allow most electric vehicles to 'charge and go' in under 15 minutes." However, it should be noted that EV charging speeds vary, and charging typically slows significantly when the battery capacity is around 20%. Source currently plans to open 300 charging hubs across the UK and Ireland.
Alice Aprile-Smith, Head of Partnerships at Source, stated that Openreach operates the UK's second-largest commercial fleet and takes its electrification transition seriously, making it exactly the type of partner Source wants to work with. Source is committed to reliably and scalably providing ultra-fast public charging across the UK and supporting one of the country's most ambitious fleet electrification projects.
Judy O'Keefe, Fleet Director at Openreach, noted that converting a fleet of this scale to electric is a significant task, and charging needs to be simple, safe, and reliable. Such partnerships allow employees to access fast, flexible charging on the go, maintaining mobility to continue serving customers and communities across the UK. As the transition to electric progresses, the company has already seen benefits such as reduced emissions and improved air quality, as part of its goal to achieve a zero-emission fleet by 2031 and its broader net-zero plan.
Openreach is working to enable engineers to use a mix of home, workplace, depot, and public charging based on where they live and how they work. The operator is also actively testing "cross-pavement charging," allowing those without access to on-street parking to charge their EVs at home by running cables through shallow channels on public footpaths. Judy stated in May 2026 that a small group of engineers is testing whether these solutions are safe, practical, and easy to use.
