Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

In support of a major trial by of commercial electric vehicles by Royal Mail, supported by Ofgem and enabled through Internet of Things technology to track and control the charging activities of thousands of commercial vehicles, the company required the supply and installation of charging posts, electrical infrastructure works and potential power upgrades.

We provided designs to accommodate the use of electric vehicles across the selected trial sites, as well as providing due diligence checks and establishing the technical viability of elements of the installation.

Specialist earthing requirements needed for charging points posed technical challenges, as did the physical constraints and congested nature of some sites, with an assortment of exposed metalwork providing further complications.

The selected sites had differing but definable capacities and, as part of the trial, Royal Mail selected some sites where the existing capacity will be exceeded to test the process and assess the cost implications of upgrading on-site and off-site infrastructure. We had to work with this in mind.

Our team worked closely with Royal Mail to achieve the best outcomes and value for money. For example, we discussed the use rapid chargers and whether these would be of benefit.

We provided our views from a technical perspective on the merits or otherwise of current charging technologies, including rapid chargers, vehicle-to-grid and vehicle-to-building chargers, mobile chargers, battery storage and solar photovoltaic arrays.

We also explored the use of vehicle-to-grid chargers as a way of utilising the potential energy in the vehicle batteries, offering a potential future revenue stream since, if the vehicles are all charged, they could provide power back to the grid.