Electric Vehicles: What an EV fleet could do for your business and where to get advice, EV chargers and more

For the past decade the number of electric vehicles on our roads has been quietly and steadily growing.

Whether it’s the local bus to take you into the city, the van that delivers your groceries or the taxi you take home from a night out on the tiles, there is an increasing chance it runs on electricity not petrol or diesel.

With Sheffield committed to becoming a zero-carbon city by 2030, businesses and organisations in and around the city are increasingly looking for ways to decarbonise – and top of many wishlists is electric vehicle (EV) solutions for their commercial or staff fleets.

That means a lot of planning, costing, logistical challenges and investment – both in the vehicles themselves but the infrastructure and support and reporting systems to go with it. And that’s where E.ON can help.

E.ON, which is already helping achieve the city’s ambition by expanding its district heat network, powered by its biomass-fuelled power plant Blackburn Meadows, is also assisting businesses in the city, UK and across Europe to switch to EVs.

Driving forward EV solutions

E.ON Drive can provide full end-to-end solutions for workplaces, homes and public spaces for EV vehicle charging.

There are two strands to the business – one which plans, builds, maintains and owns EV charging points as part of the UK public charging network and another, E.ON Drive Solutions, which helps companies set up their own infrastructure and charging points which they own.

David Butters, UK Market Director for E.ON Drive Solutions explained: “E.ON Drive Solutions supports customers who want to own their own infrastructure.”

This could be, for example, in homes and housing schemes, workplaces, for local authorities or petrol stations.

The expert staff at E.ON Drive Solutions will work with any business from planning stage to fitting, maintaining and running the EV charges – and the service doesn’t stop once it’s all up and running.

David said many medium to large businesses in particular, already had plans to reduce their carbon footprint and looking at the vehicles they, or their staff used, was often a key part of it.

Leading by example, learning by experience

E.ON has been converting its business to full EV use since 2016, when there were fewer EVs on the market, and more hybrid vehicles than pure electric.

“We started by looking at sites where we had the biggest number of people gathered – and at first it might mean about 10 EV charging points in a car park of 100 vehicles,” said David.

But that has rapidly expanded. So far 90 per cent of new company cars in the firm are electric with a target to be 100 per cent by 2025. And 350 company vans are now or have been converted to electric; even staff without company cars get an incentive to own an EV via a salary sacrifice scheme.

Not only are EVs cheaper for staff in terms of tax charged on company benefits, but they are cheaper for road tax and, David says, for many drivers are cheaper to run. E.ON’s recent research, which takes into account higher prices and electricity costs, show it is still cheaper to run an EV fleet than petrol or diesel vehicles

Fulfilling company commitments and requirements

Any company considering such a change is usually looking at it from several angles.

Firstly a brand and corporate social responsibility point of view – i.e. does it fulfil the company’s stated carbon policy for example? How much carbon will be saved and how can you measure that?

Also from the point of view of employees and potential employees. I.e what incentives are there to have an EV?

And, of course, commercially – what is the outlay compared to the expected year-on-year savings, and how will that be measured?

E.ON can offer advice and expertise on all of these – plus real-world examples, not just from its own experience but from working with companies such as BMW, where they are fitting their retail sites with chargers and distribution giant DHL where they are piloting a new charging system for large lorries.

They’ve worked with a wide variety of clients including London housing scheme which wanted EV charging points in its rotating garage, with CEVA logistics and with Mercedes in Europe and in the UK.

Technology supporting and reporting

And, of course, it’s not just about saving money but saving the planet too. Businesses increasingly want to measure and report their carbon offsetting, customers want it, employees want it and investors want it.

The technology which supports the EV charging stations can do this and so much more. Not only does the app tell the driver where the nearest EV charging point is, it is also linked not only to E.ON charging points but thousands of others too, so that it can gather data to provide essential reports to businesses on things like carbon offsetting.

Looking to the future

E.ON works across Europe, and is active in 13 European countries, but looks globally at innovation in the EV space.

Smart charging technology means, for example, a company could be charging vehicles up only at times of the day when electricity is cheapest, then offloading that charge to use elsewhere when electricity is at its most expensive – effectively using the EV as a battery pack!

It is looking at wireless charging pads – where you can simply park a vehicle over the ‘pad’ to charge it, in much the same way as you can with some phones, and there are ‘rolling road’ charging pads being tested where your car will pick up charge from thousands of these pads as you drive along.

Find out more about E.ONs vehicle charging solutions here

Decarbonising Sheffield

E.ON is working to add around 10km to the existing 8km heat network to connect businesses and homes across the Lower Don Valley region, delivering more low carbon and cost-effective heating to the city. Sheffield City Council (SCC) is one of 28 cities in the UK that are taking part in the UK Government-led Heat Network Zone Pilot Programme (HNZPP). In addition, SCC is part of the Advanced Zoning Pilot (AZP), which aims to support the construction of a number of city-wide heat networks starting at the end of 2025 – including this one, powered by the Blackburn Meadows power plant which creates heat from renewable sources.

You can read more about it here