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Years ago I was at a climate dinner and found myself sitting beside the head of electric vehicles for one of the big car makes. I said “I’d love an EV, but I don’t have a driveway”. He shook his head and said, “Then I think you’d have a real problem as public chargers are too expensive.” I didn’t have immediate plans to switch (and I’ve since gone car-free), but I started gloomily mulling on what parts of my garden I would have to concrete over to make it work if I did.

Since then, the UK Government has changed the rules to allow cross-pavement charging cable channels, which would work for me, but what about people who live at some distance from the kerb, or in in high- or medium-rise housing? Public charging is much more expensive than domestic charging, so effectively we have a ceiling on EV ownership of about 70-75%, which would be harsh on the rest, particularly if ICE-car infrastructure, eg filling stations, starts disappearing.

But today I was told about ‘virtual MPANs’. A Meter Point Administration Number (MPAN) is the unique number given to any metered connection to the grid, the electricity equivalent on an IP address on the internet – your house will have one. But what if you made them portable? By virtualising MPANs, you could plug your car into any available public charger, swipe a smart card on the reader, and you would be be billed for charging your car on your domestic bill at domestic electricity prices, just as if you were doing it at home. That is a true game changer!

When I’m faced with a tough conundrum, I often recite to myself a mantra coined by business coach Marie Forleo: “Everything is figurable-outable.” And time and time again we see new ways of thinking emerging to swerve any bollards on the path to a low carbon economy – and open up new opportunities. Time of use electricity tariffs, virtual power plants, vehicle to grid (V2G) technology, car clubs to replace car ownership, Zoom/Teams to make teleconferencing normal, battery energy storage systems (aka the equivalent of refrigeration in the food sector) – the list keeps growing.

Every time an anti-Net Zero bore moans “but whaddabout X?”, somebody clever somewhere sees it as a challenge – and an opportunity – and starts putting their mind to work to figure it out. And that that’s when the magic happens!