The five sites, each representing an investment of approximately £500,000, bring the total number of battery-equipped InstaVolt locations to eight. At least 20 further sites are planned before the end of 2026, with additional locations across Wisbech, Knutsford, Cheltenham, Blyth, Stockton-on-Tees, Penrith, York, and Thirsk already confirmed for the following financial year.
“Battery storage is one of the most powerful tools we have for accelerating the switch to electric” said Delvin Lane, CEO, InstaVolt. “It lets us deploy faster, manage our costs more effectively, and pass genuine savings on to drivers. Our batteries charge overnight when energy is cheaper and cleaner, and we draw on that stored power during the more expensive daytime hours. That saving goes to the consumer. When you factor in standing charges, VAT, and the full weight of infrastructure costs, passing savings on to drivers is not the easy option. It is the right one, and it is what we are committed to doing.”
The programme addresses two structural pressures that are intensifying across the public charging sector: escalating network demand charges, which increase in line with peak power draw, and grid connection delays that are holding back deployment of the rapid charging infrastructure the UK needs.
“The grid connection problem is real and it isn't going away quickly” added Dr Andy Palmer, CEO/Founder, Palmer Energy Technologies. “What InstaVolt has understood is that you don't have to wait for it to be solved centrally before you invest. Store cheap overnight power in batteries, draw it down during peak hours, pass the saving to the driver. That's not complicated, it's just disciplined infrastructure thinking. The Corley data tells you everything you need to know: a 33% increase in energy delivered per session because drivers can actually charge at the speed the hardware is capable of. That's what good engineering looks like in practice.”
By integrating on-site battery storage, InstaVolt sites can draw power from stored reserves during peak charging periods, reducing exposure to demand tariffs and meaningfully increasing the total power available to drivers at any given moment. Sites can also open on smaller initial grid connections, with battery capacity compensating for the gap, cutting deployment timelines significantly. These sites, where grid connections would otherwise limit performance – particularly on motorways and in rural locations where grid capacity is notoriously constrained – allow InstaVolt to supplement grid supply, allowing chargers to operate at higher speeds, directly improving the experience for drivers.
The five sites forming the current wave are:
Hadfer Ltd at Bwch Moch Cafe (opened March 2026)
National Co-op at 311 Lower Addiscombe Road (opened March 2026)
Burney Group at Harwich 2 (opened April 2026)
BNP Paribas at Northampton Williams Way (opened April 2026)
Three Trees Farm Shop and Cafe (opened April 2026).
They join three existing operational BESS sites at Winchester and Corley North and South, whose performance data is informing the design and economics of each subsequent wave.
The impact is already showing to be measurable. At both InstaVolt’s Corley service sites, the addition of 230 kVA of battery capacity brought the sites’ total available power to 500 kVA (each) across seven and eight chargers respectively. Since the upgrade, energy delivered per session has increased by 33 percent at Corley South and 22 percent at Corley North, reflecting how drivers charge more completely when higher power is available.
Moreover, the flagship site, the Winchester Superhub, is already proving to be an energy model for the future, demonstrating what smarter public charging can look like. Batteries are charged at off-peak grid rates and supplemented by on-site solar, allowing InstaVolt to offer drivers consistently lower prices regardless of when they charge.
In March alone, 42,000 kWh of solar generation contributed zero-cost power to the network. 91 percent of all energy sold was delivered during peak hours between 7am and 8pm, even though 89 percent of energy purchased from the grid was during off-peak hours and stored in the batteries. Drivers benefit from that economic shift without needing to think about when they plug in.
This summer, the model is enabling a reduced rate of 70p per kWh, supported by increased solar generation. As battery and solar capacity grow across the network, Winchester represents the template for how InstaVolt intends to operate.
Site selection is driven by a combination of factors, but the common thread is high demand and high footfall. Winchester and Corley (north and southbound motorway services) sit on the Strategic Road Network, making them among the busiest and most strategically important charging locations in InstaVolt's network. Several of the spring 2026 sites are expansions of existing InstaVolt locations that were already performing well: BESS is the logical next step to meet growing demand at sites where the grid connection alone can no longer keep pace with utilisation.
For drivers, the changes are invisible at the point of charge. Arriving at an InstaVolt site, tapping a card and charging at full speed remains the experience. Behind that experience, the infrastructure is now more resilient, more economically durable, and capable of supporting higher utilisation as EV adoption grows.
InstaVolt’s position is that the UK’s charging infrastructure challenge requires operators to engineer around the constraints that exist today rather than waiting for policy resolution. The company has called for clearer classification of EV charging as critical national infrastructure and faster grid connection processes, but is not treating either as a precondition for investment.
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