[Workingitallout]

I'm putting together a proposal for our small semi rural community building to install an EV charging point. The building and park is run by trustees (Parish Council) and is a registered charity on private property.

Renewable energy sources onsite include wind turbine and ground source heat pumps. There are 2 car parking spaces marked in a perfect position next to the building where a unit could be installed. There is also sufficient parking for hall and park users.

Benefits I'm considering:
-Attracting new visitors who may be inspired to book events at the hall. We need to increase our bookings, esp weddings after a full year of closure and cancellations during Covid.
-Community benefit for EV owners without off street parking (requests from residents received)
-Making good use of clean energy
-Benefit to hall hirers and their groups/ guests
-Could free charging be offered as a benefit to volunteers*?
-Provide some income to the hall

There is no café or other business onsite who would benefit from extra footfall of the public staying a while to charge their vehicle. It is a lovely tranquil park for them to enjoy though, with a great playground too. So plenty of benefit for the user to visit, just no business opportunities as such for us, aside from EV charging revenue.

*As the hall is run mostly by volunteers, who's numbers have dwindled over the years, it would be really great to be able to offer free charging to people who offered their time and skills to the hall. But is it possible to charge some people and not others?

What do you think about trialing an honesty box approach but with a scannable QR code for the public to make online donations via Paypal? Or a contactless card processing machine outside?

 

[Flying Dodo]

Can't see there's a problem providing the benefit free to your volunteers. It's no different to giving them a cup of tea.

With an honesty box unfortunately you'd get a small minority taking advantage of you, so you'd have to look at some form of contactless reader.

 

[SueH]

I was looking around my local area for chargers some time ago and saw Boxgrove Village Hall & Community Centre (PO18 0EE). Perhaps they might be able to help in how they implemented their system. (Having just checked it's currently OOO but the information might still help.)

 

[WalkingBootWeather]

I looked into doing something similar for a local sports club that also has meeting rooms and a nice bar which is hired out for functions. In the end we concluded it wasn't worth the effort. Didn't appear that we could get much in the way of grants so indicative costs were over £2000 for a twin headed post.

The bigger issues were around how we would make it available to those we wanted to and prevent just anyone jumping on for a free charge. There are solutions involving technology or a human but these just added to expense, or hassle-factor, or both.

What I hadn't forseen was the resistance from other club users and volunteers to a perk that would benefit just a few. In our case most users of the facilities would be relatively local so could make a return journey from home without having to charge. None of our users therefore 'needed' a charger (and wouldn't have paid for one when it was cheaper to home charge), it wasn't going to offer and real environmental benefits just save the minority that were able to use the charger a few quid (and cause resentment in those without an EV or amongst EV drivers who arrived to find charger in use or ICEd.

 

[cah197]

With an honesty box unfortunately you'd get a small minority taking advantage of you, so you'd have to look at some form of contactless reader.

I have used a coin operated EV charge point in Zurich. Worked quite well.

 

[Kingpleb1]

I think a podpoint could do what you want.
You'd just need to have the accounts of those authorised for free charging to have no charge assigned to them.
Everyone else just gets charged say 14p/kwh

 

[mikeselectricstuff]

I have used a coin operated EV charge point in Zurich. Worked quite well.

I saw one in the RAF museum at Hendon - I think it was made by Rolec

 

[WonkoTheSaneUK]

You could do like my local Costco. Members who want to charge have to ask the guys in the tyre bay to switch on the breaker.

 

[dk6780]

You could do like my local Costco. Members who want to charge have to ask the guys in the tyre bay to switch on the breaker.

Which requires someone to be there, and to remember to turn it off afterwards.

Alternatively you can get devices like this - GSM- AUTO Cell and mobile phone emote control switch that switch on and off by being called from a mobile phone. Anyone with the number can turn it on or off, although you'd need to wire it to the CP or use a contactor to switch the whole unit.

 

[Workingitallout]

These are all great replies, thanks for taking the time to reply.
I just spoke briefly with someone at Green Dawn who were tipped off by Chargemaster and it seems we can have a public charging tarrif, with a RSID(?) card for volunteers to use foc.
We wouldn't be eligible for a workplace grant so as you say we would have to fork out for it, hopefully getting money back over time. At least we know there is a demand locally, though perhaps not with our current volunteers. It could be one of those tipping points for some I suppose in making the move to EV.
Speaking to some companies about options so will report back.
Thanks for all your advice and examples

 

[WonkoTheSaneUK]

These are all great replies, thanks for taking the time to reply.
I just spoke briefly with someone at Green Dawn who were tipped off by Chargemaster and it seems we can have a public charging tarrif, with a RSID(?) card for volunteers to use foc.
We wouldn't be eligible for a workplace grant so as you say we would have to fork out for it, hopefully getting money back over time. At least we know there is a demand locally, though perhaps not with our current volunteers. It could be one of those tipping points for some I suppose in making the move to EV.
Speaking to some companies about options so will report back.
Thanks for all your advice and examples

That would be RFID - Radio Frequency IDentification.
It's also used in hotel keycards, shop security tags & pet microchipping to name a few examples you may be familiar with.

 

[Hilltop Dave]

These are all great replies, thanks for taking the time to reply.
I just spoke briefly with someone at Green Dawn who were tipped off by Chargemaster and it seems we can have a public charging tarrif, with a RFID card for volunteers to use foc.

This is done in Church Stretton, where the destination charging point by the Co-op was put in with the assistance of Stretton Climate Care. It is administered by bp pulse, who make their usual £1.20 connection fee for ad-hoc users, but EV owning members of Stretton Climate care have RFID cards which allow free use for just this one charging point.

 

[TJEV]

I saw one in the RAF museum at Hendon - I think it was made by Rolec

These are the Rolec token machines. You’re meant to go in and ask for a token, but invariably the staff won’t know what you’re talking about or will have lost them. Midshires Electrical sell job lots of the tokens though, so you can stock up if your nearest charger is one of these, and not have to deal with the hassle.

 

[WalkingBootWeather]

And at less than 50p a token that's cheap charging for someone.......

 

[Astolat]

Technically, by letting volunteers charge free you would be providing them with compensation for the work done, but since providing free charging is a tax-free perk for employees, I can’t see HMRC having any interest.

 

[Gt6k]

I don't think this will end well. From an EV advocacy point of view what we all want is more chargers accessible all the time. Free charging tends to lead to people hogging the chargers. At work we have chargepoint chargers that anyone can use are on ZAPMAP etc and we set the rate. Just do it at cost (15p kWh) which means the people who need a charge wil get it and it is unlikely that anyone will stay plugged in unless necesary.

 

[Workingitallout]

This is done in Church Stretton, where the destination charging point by the Co-op was put in with the assistance of Stretton Climate Care. It is administered by bp pulse, who make their usual £1.20 connection fee for ad-hoc users, but EV owning members of Stretton Climate care have RFID cards which allow free use for just this one charging point.

This is so helpful to know, thanks

 

[Workingitallout]

That would be RFID - Radio Frequency IDentification.
It's also used in hotel keycards, shop security tags & pet microchipping to name a few examples you may be familiar with.

Aha, thank you!

 

[Workingitallout]

Technically, by letting volunteers charge free you would be providing them with compensation for the work done, but since providing free charging is a tax-free perk for employees, I can’t see HMRC having any interest.

That's an interesting point. I suppose as the energy is renewable, we aren't buying it in, then even more so, although as a charity we of course are obliged to maximise any assets. Thanks for that consideration.