EV Charging
Several chargepoints on a commercial site, designed around the supply the building already has
The Lake Electrical team designs and installs EV charging for commercial sites across the South East, in car parks, offices, schools and university estates, where the real work is the incoming supply, the load management and the distribution rather than the unit on the wall. We establish what capacity a building has before any chargepoint is specified.
NICEIC approved contractor. SafeContractor accredited. DBS-checked engineers. Trading since 2008.
Commercial EV charging installation across the South East
We are an electrical contractor based in Battle in East Sussex, carrying out commercial EV chargepoint installation across Kent, East Sussex, Surrey and the wider South East. We are set up for several chargepoints on one site: car park charging for staff and visitors, workplace charging in offices and commercial property during a fit out, charging for schools with a minibus as well as staff cars, bays added a few at a time across a university campus, and fleet charging on industrial sites. It sits on top of our power distribution work, alongside our commercial electrical installations and the rest of our services.
The difference between ordering chargepoints and designing EV charging
Most EV charging that disappoints was bought as a product decision. Four units are chosen on price, fitted to the nearest wall and taken back to whichever board had a spare way, with nobody assessing what the supply was already carrying. The site then trips out at four in the afternoon, with the kitchen, the air conditioning and four cars all drawing at once, or the units are throttled so far back to stop that happening that a car gains a few miles an hour and the staff who asked for them give up.
Designed EV charging begins with capacity. We establish what the supply can give you and what the building already uses, then work out the charging arrangement inside that figure, so the site shares the capacity it has rather than paying for an upgrade it does not need. The cable route and the civils are surveyed and priced before you see a number, so the groundwork is in the quote rather than arriving as a variation. And the distribution is designed for the chargepoints you will want in three years, because a spare way, a larger cable and an empty duct laid now cost a fraction of opening the ground twice.
What EV charging designed around the supply gives you
In a car park, four cars charge at once on a weekday afternoon and the building carries on as normal, because the chargepoints give capacity back when the rest of the site wants it. At a school, the minibus charges overnight on its own arrangement while the staff cars share what is left by day. And because the ducting, the cable and the board were sized for the number you will reach rather than the number you start with, two more chargepoints next year is a cable pull and a commissioning visit.
The supply, the capacity and the load
A chargepoint is a continuous load, which is why EV charging is the most common reason a modern building runs out of capacity. A 7 kW single phase unit draws around 32 amps for hours at a time, and four together can ask more of a supply than everything else in a small office block. The first piece of work is therefore a load assessment: the rating of the supply, what the building already records, and the headroom left at the busiest hour. Where three phase is available it is usually the better answer, since a 22 kW unit spreads the load across all three phases and charges a capable vehicle far faster, though many cars accept only single phase on board.
Dynamic load management is what makes the numbers work on most sites. Measuring the current at the intake lets the chargepoints share whatever headroom is left, so the total never exceeds what the supply can carry and the building keeps priority. Where the capacity is not there at all, a supply upgrade or new distribution is the answer, which is our power distribution and main panels work. Protection matters as much as capacity: each chargepoint needs its own circuit, residual current protection including detection of DC residual current, and an earthing arrangement dealing with loss of the supply neutral, settled at the survey rather than assumed.
What a commercial EV charging installation with us includes
Planned around the estate rather than around one visit
Most of this work is for occupiers and estates teams, and we are used to acting for the tenant carrying the cost. School work is planned into the holidays, and on a campus charging often goes in phases across several years, each designed against the same capacity picture. [[CONFIRM: whether you want to name current workplace or infrastructure grant funding and help clients apply]]
Accredited and experienced on commercial sites
We have been carrying out commercial electrical work since 2008. NICEIC approved contractor. SafeContractor accredited. DBS-checked engineers, who have all been with us at least two years. The supply and distribution work behind EV charging is what we do every week.
Recent work
What clients say
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Why clients choose the Lake Electrical team
Lake Electrical is family run and owner led, and larger than the typical local electrician. The owners run the jobs themselves, so the person who walks the car park with you is the one who prices it and the one answerable for it. Call in working hours and you get a person in the office, not a voicemail, which matters when a board of governors is waiting on a figure.
What we will not do is quote for four chargepoints without looking at your supply. If the site can take two now and two more once a board is changed, we say so. We are not the cheapest, and we are straight about that. What you pay for is an installation designed against the capacity the building has, carried out to BS 7671.
EV charging questions answered
How many chargepoints can our existing supply take
More than most people expect once load management is in the design, and the only way to answer accurately is to look. We assess the supply, what the building draws and the spare capacity in the boards, then tell you how many chargepoints the site will support and at what rate. Some sites have had the headroom all along, others have needed supply work first.
Do we need a supply upgrade, and how long does that take
Often not, because load management usually avoids it. Where the capacity really is short, an upgraded supply or new intake arrangement is needed, which involves the distribution network operator as well as us, so the lead time runs in months rather than weeks. A first phase can usually run on the existing supply while an upgrade is in progress.
How much does commercial EV charging cost, and do you visit first
We visit first, then price the whole job in one figure covering the design, the supply work, the cable route and civils, the chargepoints, the commissioning and the certification. Cost varies far more with the groundwork and the distribution than with the units, which is why a price given over the phone is the one that grows.
Can we recover the cost from the people using the chargepoints
Yes. Every session is recorded in kilowatt hours against the user who started it, and the back office produces the reports your finance team needs. Tenants can be billed, staff charged a rate per kilowatt hour and visitor bays handled separately.
Request a quote for your EV charging
If you are planning charging in a car park, an office building or across a school or university site, the next step is a site visit and a capacity assessment.
Planning EV charging? Request a quote. Prefer a chat first? Get in touch, or call the team on [[NAP: phone number]].
We work across Kent, East Sussex, Surrey and the wider South East, with commercial projects reaching sites such as Chichester.