ChargedUp is a network of portable chargers you can rent across London

No matter how well you plan, there are times when your phone battery will give up on you. If don’t have your charger on you, you’re stuck until you can get home – but ChargedUp believes it has the answer: a network of portable phone chargers that can be borrowed from (and returned to) collection points all over London.

It’s like Boris Bikes with phone chargers. Simply download the ChargedUp app, locate a charging station, scan a QR code and hey presto, a battery charger will be released.

Related: Best portable charger

You can borrow it for as long as you need, and then return it to any of the charging pods around the city when you’re done.

The batteries have Lightning, microUSB and USB Type-C connectors, so any phone released within the last nine years should be covered.  

If you have multiple devices to charge, you should be in luck, as ChargedUp’s chargers are 6,000mAh in size. That means you’ll likely get one or two full charges, depending on your phone (the iPhone 8 packs a 2,675mAh battery, but the Lenovo P2’s has nearly double the capacity).

So how much do you have to pay for a portable charger rental? Well, nothing for your first two charges − they’re on the house when you download the ChargedUp app.

After that, you pay 50p for a half-hour loan, with a maximum charge of £3 per day. Rather cunningly, you can also buy one of the batteries outright for £30, which gives you unlimited charges on the network for a whole year (you just grab another when yours is out of juice).

Read more: Best smartphone

The whole network of chargers is powered by green energy, supplied by Ecotricity. To begin with, there are 30 locations over central London, but ChargedUp has plans to expand this by at least another 970 by the end of the year, with plans to move beyond the capital in 2019.

You can find a list of locations within the app.

Is this the solution to your charging woes? Tell us what you think on Twitter by messaging @TrustedReviews.