Commercial EV charging has moved from early-adopter curiosity to operational necessity for most Welsh businesses with a workforce car park or a customer-facing premises. The Workplace Charging Scheme grant offsets a meaningful share of the capex, DNO connection timelines are predictable, and the technical choices boil down to three practical variables: charger rating, back-office platform, and supply capacity.
This is the FLD playbook for commercial EV charging in Wales in 2026.
Choosing the right charger rating
The headline ratings are 7 kW, 22 kW, 50 kW and 150 kW-plus. The right choice is driven by dwell time, not by ambition.
7 kW AC (single-phase)
Dwell time: 6 to 10 hours. Delivers roughly 30 to 50 miles of range per hour.
Best for: workplace car parks where vehicles are parked for a full shift. The economics are strongly in favour of 7 kW for workplace applications: the charger is cheap, the install is routine single-phase work, and the Workplace Charging Scheme grant covers a substantial share of the unit cost.
22 kW AC (three-phase)
Dwell time: 2 to 4 hours. Delivers 80 to 120 miles of range per hour.
Best for: customer car parks with medium dwell (hotel, gym, retail park), fleet sites where vehicles do short top-ups between tasks, mixed-use sites where a small number of faster chargers complement a larger bank of 7 kW units. Requires three-phase supply.
50 kW DC
Dwell time: 30 to 45 minutes. Delivers 100 to 150 miles of range in that window.
Best for: customer rapid-charging at retail, hospitality and destination sites where dwell is short but the customer wants to leave with meaningful range. Requires three-phase supply and generally a local transformer or substantial supply capacity upgrade.
150 kW-plus DC
Dwell time: 15 to 25 minutes.
Best for: motorway services, fleet depots with strict turnaround times, public rapid hubs. Typically requires a private substation or dedicated HV connection. Not applicable to most commercial SME sites.
The common mistake is over-specifying. A workforce car park does not need 22 kW chargers. A gym does not need 50 kW. Match dwell to charger rating.
Workplace Charging Scheme in 2026
The Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) is an OZEV grant that covers up to 75 percent of the purchase and installation cost of EV charge points, up to £350 per socket, with a maximum of 40 sockets per applicant across all sites.
Key eligibility rules:
- Applicant must be a registered business, charity or public authority
- Charge points must be installed by an OZEV-authorised installer (FLD is OZEV-authorised)
- Chargers must be smart and meet the EV Smart Charge Point Regulations 2021
- Claim must be submitted by the installer within 6 months of the voucher issue
Typical workflow:
- Client identifies eligible sockets and parking spaces
- Client applies to OZEV for a WCS voucher
- FLD installs the chargers to the voucher schedule
- FLD submits the claim on the client’s behalf
- OZEV pays the grant direct to FLD, who net it off the client’s invoice
For a 10-socket workplace installation, a £350-per-socket grant is £3,500 off a typical £15,000 install cost, reducing the effective capex to £11,500. Paybacks at current commercial electricity pricing and staff mileage rates are typically 3 to 5 years.
DNO process: G99 and supply capacity
Commercial EV chargers are grid connections in the same sense as commercial solar, and they are subject to the same G98/G99 notification framework.
| Installation | DNO process | Typical timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Single 7 kW charger | G98 notification | Same week |
| Bank of 7 kW chargers, below incoming supply capacity | G99 Fast Track | 2 to 4 weeks |
| 22 kW chargers | G99 Type A | 6 to 8 weeks |
| 50 kW DC chargers | G99 Type A or Type B | 8 to 16 weeks |
| 150 kW-plus DC | Full connection application | 12 to 40 weeks |
The binding constraint is usually supply capacity. A commercial site with a 100 kVA incoming supply can run roughly 14 chargers at 7 kW each, or 4 to 5 chargers at 22 kW, before load management intervenes. Beyond that, the site needs either active load management (which we design in) or a supply upgrade.
Supply upgrades are the slowest and most expensive part of commercial EV charging. Upgrading from a 100 kVA to a 200 kVA supply typically costs £8,000 to £25,000 depending on the local network situation and takes 8 to 20 weeks. This should be identified at survey stage, not discovered during install.
OCPP and OCPI: what actually matters
The charger protocol landscape is mostly noise for end users, but there are two standards that do matter.
OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol)
OCPP is the protocol between the charger and the back-office platform. OCPP 1.6 is the working standard across the majority of UK commercial chargers; OCPP 2.0.1 is the emerging standard with richer smart-charging features.
Why it matters: OCPP compliance means you are not locked into a single back-office platform. If your current provider raises fees or exits the market, you can move to another OCPP-compliant back-office without replacing the hardware.
We will not install non-OCPP chargers on commercial sites. Period.
OCPI (Open Charge Point Interface)
OCPI is the protocol between charge point operators (CPOs) and e-mobility service providers (EMSPs). In practice, OCPI is what allows a public charger to accept payment via any major EV roaming network. For public-facing chargers on retail, hospitality and destination sites, OCPI compliance is the difference between “accepts any card” and “only accepts our app”.
Smart charging and the 2021 regulations
The EV Smart Charge Point Regulations 2021 mandated that all new domestic and workplace chargers sold in the UK must:
- Be capable of smart charging (load management, TOU response)
- Include a randomised delay of up to 10 minutes on activation to reduce grid-scale peak loading
- Have specific security requirements for connected-device compliance
- Default-off from charging during 8am to 11am and 4pm to 10pm on weekdays (though this can be overridden by the user)
All chargers we install are fully compliant. The randomised delay and default-off behaviour are visible in the first few weeks of use but generally invisible to end users thereafter.
Load management: the invisible economics
On sites approaching supply capacity, static load management (DLM) is often more cost-effective than a supply upgrade. DLM monitors the whole-site demand and dynamically throttles the chargers to stay within the available headroom.
A typical DLM deployment:
- Main incoming supply CT clamps measure whole-site demand
- DLM controller arbitrates between chargers
- Chargers throttle down during site peak demand (e.g., midday HVAC ramp) and up during quieter periods
- End users see a slower charge rate at peak times but do not miss out on any total energy delivered over the day
DLM adds £800 to £2,500 to a multi-charger install, versus £8,000 to £25,000 for a supply upgrade. For the vast majority of commercial workplace charging deployments, DLM is the right answer.
Costs and typical installations
For a Welsh commercial site in 2026, indicative installed costs:
| Installation | Hardware | Install labour | Total ex-VAT |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single 7 kW tethered | £550 to £850 | £450 to £700 | £1,000 to £1,550 |
| Bank of 4x 7 kW with DLM | £2,800 to £4,000 | £3,000 to £5,000 | £5,800 to £9,000 |
| Single 22 kW | £1,200 to £1,800 | £900 to £1,500 | £2,100 to £3,300 |
| Single 50 kW DC | £12,000 to £18,000 | £5,000 to £12,000 | £17,000 to £30,000 |
| 150 kW DC with transformer | £35,000 to £60,000 | £20,000 to £50,000 | £55,000 to £110,000 |
WCS grants apply to 7 kW and 22 kW installations; they do not apply to 50 kW-plus DC.
Integration with solar and battery
On sites with existing or planned commercial solar PV, EV chargers are a natural addition because:
- Daytime EV charging on a workplace car park correlates with peak solar generation
- Self-consumption rates improve sharply, often from 65 to 85 percent
- Integrated solar-EV scheduling can prioritise charging vehicles from surplus generation
Our standard commercial solar-plus-EV design uses a single Modbus-linked energy management system that modulates EV charging in response to instantaneous solar surplus, rather than simple time-scheduled blocks.
Starting the conversation
If you are planning commercial EV charging in South Wales and want a site-specific feasibility study including supply capacity analysis, WCS application support and OCPP-compliant hardware selection, call Paul direct on 01792 321123.
