The shift to electric vehicles is no longer a distant prospect — it is happening now. Businesses across Kent are installing EV charging points for employee parking, customer convenience, and commercial fleet charging. The Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) offers grants of up to £14,000 for businesses installing up to 40 sockets, but the application process and installation requirements are strict.
Before any charger is mounted, we carry out a comprehensive site survey. The first question is always power capacity. A standard 7kW single-phase charger draws 32 amps — roughly the same as a commercial oven. Install ten of them, and you are looking at a 100A three-phase supply just for the car park. Without proper load balancing and, in many cases, a supply upgrade, your chargers will trip the main breaker every Monday morning.
At DCC Electrics, we have installed EV chargers for logistics depots in Gravesend, hospitality venues in Maidstone, and office complexes in Dartford. Every project starts with a demand calculation: how many vehicles, what battery sizes, what charging speeds, and what duty cycle? A fleet of delivery vans that need overnight charging has completely different requirements to a handful of employee cars trickle-charging during the workday.
The physical installation involves running SWA cable from the distribution board to the charger location, installing a dedicated Type B RCD or RCBO, and mounting the charger on a wall or post. We also install load management systems where required — these monitor the building's total demand and throttle the chargers dynamically to prevent overloading the supply.
Smart chargers are increasingly popular. These units connect to a central management platform, allowing businesses to set pricing, restrict access by employee RFID card, schedule charging for off-peak tariffs, and generate usage reports. We work with leading brands including EO, Rolec, and Project EV, and we can advise on the right hardware and software combination for your specific use case.
Do not underestimate the civil works. Trenching across a car park, installing cable ducting, and laying foundations for charger posts can add significant time and cost to a project. We handle the entire process — electrical design, civil coordination, installation, testing, and OZEV grant paperwork — so you only deal with one contractor from start to finish.
