Back-to-base overnight and rapid-turnaround charging for vans, HGVs, coaches and pool vehicles — sized to a duty cycle and grid connection, not to footfall.
What fleet & depot charging involves
Predictable, high-simultaneity overnight load, smart-scheduled to the cheapest off-peak window; the Depot Charging Scheme funds 70% (up to £1m) for van/HGV/coach depots; on-site battery or dynamic load management usually beats a grid upgrade; fuel saving of roughly two-thirds vs diesel drives a ~2-year payback on the infrastructure.
Sizing and cost
A typical fleet & depot charging project runs to 10-100+ sockets, 7-22kW AC overnight + 50-350kW DC rapid, heavy load management, at an indicative £50,000-£500,000+ with roughly a 2-year payback. The biggest cost variable is the electrical connection, not the chargers — which is why we lead with your supply and use load management to fit more sockets within it wherever possible. See the full cost breakdown and charger-type guide.
Compliance and connection
DNO G99 approval required BEFORE works for three-phase/high-load sites (5-65 working-day quote, possible reinforcement lead time); ZEV mandate pressure; BS 7671 / IET CoP.
We handle the Distribution Network Operator application and, where a public or paid element applies, design to the relevant regulations from the outset. Read more on load management and the DNO connection.
Funding this project
The 100% First-Year Allowance lets you write the chargepoint cost off against tax; where a grant applies to your use case we handle the paperwork. See our grants and funding guide for the current, dated position and the schemes that closed in 2026.
Fleet depot charging: back-to-base, overnight, and built around the duty cycle
A depot is the opposite of a public forecourt. Your vans, HGVs or minibuses return to one yard, sit idle for eight to fourteen hours overnight, and leave again on a known route the next morning. That predictability is the whole opportunity: you rarely need expensive rapid chargers for the core fleet. A 40-van LGV operation running 120 miles a day can top up entirely on 7kW AC bays over a 10-hour window, because each vehicle only needs to replace 30-40kWh. The exception is redeploys and back-shift swaps — for those you keep a handful of 50kW DC rapids (£25k-£45k each) so a returning vehicle can be turned around in under an hour and sent back out.
The grant that fits here is the Depot Charging Scheme, not the £500-per-socket Workplace Charging Scheme. It covers 70% of infrastructure and installation cost up to £1m and is aimed squarely at vans, HGVs and coaches — the vehicles a depot actually runs. Stack it with the 100% First-Year Allowance on charge points (to 31 March 2027) and the up-front capital shrinks fast. See grants and funding for eligibility and how the depot scheme differs from the workplace grant.
The economics are driven by mileage, not by any single charger. Diesel at the pump runs roughly 22p per mile; charging overnight on a commercial supply lands near 7p per mile. Across a 40-vehicle fleet doing 120 miles a day, that ~15p/mile gap is around £250,000 of fuel saved a year — which is why depot electrification typically pays back the net (post-grant) capital in about two years, well inside the vehicle replacement cycle. The cost page breaks the AC-versus-DC mix down bay by bay.
The constraint that bites is the grid connection, not the chargers. Forty 7kW bays charging at once is 280kW of simultaneous demand — enough to trip an undersized supply and enough to require G99 approval before any works on a three-phase or high-load site. DNO reinforcement to lift your capacity can carry a lead time of many months and a five- or six-figure bill. The way around it is dynamic load management: the system reads live building and fleet demand and shares the existing supply across every bay, ramping each vehicle so the whole fleet is full by dawn without ever exceeding your agreed capacity. Where even that is tight, an on-site battery charges cheaply off-peak and discharges into the fleet at the evening peak, letting you charge more vehicles behind the same meter. Our load management approach is what makes a whole-fleet depot viable without a costly upgrade.
Layered on top is ZEV mandate pressure: the escalating zero-emission sales targets mean your fleet transition is a when, not an if, and depot infrastructure has the longest lead time in the chain. Getting the G99 application in and the load strategy designed now is what stops the grid queue from dictating your replacement timetable. Note the Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 don't apply to a private back-to-base depot — those reliability and contactless rules bite only on public, paid charging.
Tell us your fleet size, daily mileage and shift pattern and we will size the AC/DC split, the load strategy and the grant claim around your duty cycle — start at /quote/.
Typical fleet & depot charging install
- Sockets & power
- 10-100+ sockets, 7-22kW AC overnight + 50-350kW DC rapid, heavy load management
- Typical project value
- £50,000-£500,000+
- Payback
- 2 years
Get a free fleet & depot charging quote
Responds within one working day
- 1. Free desk feasibility from your meter data and roof, no obligation.
- 2. Site survey and a fixed-price proposal, itemised in writing.
- 3. Install and aftercare by MCS-certified engineers.
- MCS Certified
- NICEIC
- RECC
- TrustMark
Common questions
What does a business save by switching a van fleet to electric?
On a commercial overnight tariff, depot charging typically costs around 7p per mile versus roughly 22p per mile for diesel. For a 24-van fleet doing ~336,000 miles a year that's an indicative fuel saving of around £50,000 a year, before lower maintenance and Clean Air Zone savings. Figures vary by tariff, mileage and vehicle, and public rapid charging is dearer than depot charging.