Getting Ready for Electric Vehicles

Businesses, retailers and employers could all benefit from having EV charging points installed at their sites. Whether it's for owners who want to charge up while doing the weekly shop or employees who want to charge whilst at work, destination charging is becoming increasingly popular. If you're thinking about retrofitting, you'll need to appoint an accredited installer who'll assess your existing electrical demand and how much additional power you would require. If it's more than your existing electricity supply can accommodate, your installer can make an application to increase the size of your connection.

Charging hubs are often located on petrol forecourts and at motorway service stations and are used by EV drivers in a similar way to conventional vehicles, to fill up quickly. The power supplies at existing petrol stations aren't designed to accommodate the kind of demand that electric vehicle charging stations will need and so if you're thinking about this type of connection, we recommend you talk to our design team  at an early stage and before making an application so that we can help you explore your options and identify the best solution.

Charging points can be added to existing unmetered supplies, like street lights and telecoms cabinets, this is a solution being adopted by many Local Authorities but it's also possible to install ‘pop-up’ on-street columns owned by third party charging companies. If you're thinking about installing on-street charging you should read our EV charging guide and talk to our team early in the planning process, we're happy to work with you to identify the right charging solution.

AutoDesign  can help you to identify the best locations to install new EV chargers. Powered by real-world network data, AutoDesign uses a simple green, amber, red indicator to help you locate the most viable and cost-effective connection solution, can give you an indicative cost for your connection in minutes and enables you to generate you own free of charge budget estimates.