As electric vehicles become more mainstream, businesses need to think about how to provide workplace EV charging stations to support their customers and staff, and improve their own bottom line.
Businesses are many and varied, and could benefit from workplace EV charging in the following ways:
- Electric vehicles have lower running costs than petrol or diesel vehicles, so for businesses where mobility is central, such as taxi drivers or bus companies, rapid EV chargers are the obvious choice.
- Where companies run fleets of company cars, fast electric car charging stations installed at work and the home of the staff member will similarly reduce running costs
- Having EV charging stations at your place of work will become increasingly vital to attract business. Clients and customers may wish to fast charge their car when visiting your business premises. This is likely to be especially true in the retail/hospitality sectors, where being able to provide charging points will attract customers at the expense of those who do not provide this service.
- Your staff are also likely to require the ability to charge their electric cars at work – so it’s important to consider if you want to keep them happy!
There are a range of unique smart features that can be implemented for electric car charging points for the workplace.
BILLING HOME CHARGING
For businesses running fleets, or paying staff travel expenses it is possible to connect a smart charger at home to the billing system of the business so that fuel costs can be reimbursed automatically.
USING CHARGECARDS
It is possible to set up billing on each charge station, where users pay to charge their vehicles. Rates can be set by the owner, and the units are accessed by a standard RFID charge card. All charge point usage and billing
Dynamic Load Balancing
Many electric car charge station installations for work require multiple charge points. If all were being used simultaneously this could require an oversized, over-engineered solution, or otherwise risk overloading the electrics. However, our smart chargers feature dynamic load balancing which smartly allocates available power between the units. For example we can set 6 units to charge at a maximum of 22kW.
If only one workplace EV charging station is being used, it will receive the full 22kW. If three are being used, this drops to 7.2kW each, and if all 6 are being used, each vehicle receives 3.6kW. Overall it means you can run 6 charging points off of a 22kW supply, instead of something larger and more expensive.
This is because the required infrastructure (wiring, distribution boards, required import capacity) can be kept at more sensible sizes and minimise the cost of the installation. If your electric car parking bays aren’t going to be used at full capacity all the time (as cars come and go), this is an optimal approach to take.
TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS
There are a few technical issues that you should consider before buying your home EV charge point.
Type 1 or Type 2
It is also important to ensure you have the right cable to fit your car. The majority of car sockets are either Type 1 or Type 2. Type 1 is a 5 pin socket capable of charging single phase at 3.6 or 7 kW. Type 2 is a 7 pin socket and can be used to charge at 3.6, 7 or 22kW (3-phase). As part of the survey process we ask you to tell us what car you own, so we can make sure you get the right cable.
Wall-mounted or post mounted
All of our charge points can be mounted on the wall (in a garage, or discretely on the front of your house) or on a standalone post (perhaps on a driveway, for convenient charging).
Once again, it’s a matter of personal preference – just let us know where you would like your charge point located in the survey form.
Tethered or untethered?
You will need to consider whether to get a tethered or an untethered charger. A tethered EV home charger has the charging cable integrated into the charge point itself. By contrast, an untethered cable is loose at both ends and is usually stored within the boot of the car and can also be used for charging when out and about. It’s really a matter of personal preference – would you find getting a cable out of the car every time you charge an inconvenience? If so, get a tethered charge point. But remember – you will need a cable in your car anyway for charging on the go.