The electric truck question turns out to be mostly an electricity question: not which vehicle, but whether the depot can feed it. Charging infrastructure is the long pole of fleet electrification - grid connections take quarters, not weeks - and government has now put serious money behind exactly this bottleneck: the Depot Charging Scheme, a £170 million multi-year programme running to 2030.
The Depot Charging Scheme aims to support the uptake of zero-emission HGVs, vans and coaches by part-funding the installation of charging infrastructure at fleet depots. Following a 2025/26 pilot, the multi-year programme launched with £170 million from April 2026 to 2030, with £66 million available across two application windows this year. The first window opened on 25 March 2026 - applications assessed first-come-first-served, closing 30 June 2026 - and covered 70% of charge point and civil costs, up to a maximum of £1 million across all sites, with works to complete by 31 March 2027. One application per organisation, but no limit on the number of sites within it. The next window is expected to open 28 October 2026 for projects from April 2027, with grant rates reducing over the programme’s life as infrastructure gets cheaper - the clear signal: earlier applications are worth more.
The eligibility shape matters for planning: the fleet must include - or will include - at least one battery-electric van, HGV or coach, with the charging need quantified; the organisation must be UK-registered, operating for at least a year, owning or leasing the depot; and a senior leader must have approved the proposal.
The grant funds the answer; the fleet still has to find it. The power question: what the site can draw today versus what the fleet will need - the conversation with the distribution network operator starts early, because capacity upgrades are the timeline-killer and their cost belongs in the scheme’s ‘civil costs’ thinking. The duty-cycle question: which vehicles charge when - overnight dwell at the depot is the easy case, while double-shifted vehicles need faster charging or opportunity top-ups, and the answer sizes the chargers. The siting question: charger placement against vehicle manoeuvring - a 16-metre outfit reversing onto a charger in the rain is a design failure with a plug. The phasing question: infrastructure ahead of vehicles, because a truck that arrives before its charger is a very expensive ornament. And the landlord question for leased depots: the scheme allows lessees, but the landlord’s consent and the reinstatement position belong in writing first.
Depot charging is the electrification bottleneck, and the Depot Charging Scheme is £170 million aimed at it - 70% of costs up to £1 million in the first window, with rates falling over time and the next window expected October 2026. Start the grid conversation now, size from the duty cycle, site for the vehicle’s reality, and phase infrastructure ahead of trucks.
The scheme’s mechanics reward preparation: one application per organisation, first-come-first-served assessment within the window, and works completion by the stated deadline - 31 March 2027 for the first window. The application that lands well has the grid conversation already started - the DNO engagement is evidence of deliverability, not just homework; the fleet quantified - the current vehicles, the zero-emission pipeline, the charging demand calculated rather than guessed; the depot ownership or lease position documented; and the senior sign-off genuine - the declaration is a commitment, and the fleet that wins funding without delivery capacity hands the money back with interest in reputation. The falling grant rates across the programme’s life are the quiet deadline: the scheme is deliberately front-loaded, and the fleet that waits for certainty pays for it in percentage points.
The depot is the foundation, not the whole answer: the duty cycles that outrun overnight charging need a plan for the road. The honest appraisal starts from the fleet’s own duty-cycle data - daily mileages, dwell locations and times - because the electric truck question is answered per route, not per fleet: the back-to-base urban work electrifies on depot charging alone, the long trunking legs need either the emerging public HGV charging network or a different duty assignment, and the hardest multi-shift work may wait for the next vehicle generation. The fleets that map every route against charging reality before ordering vehicles avoid the industry’s expensive error - the electric truck bought for the fleet average and assigned to a route it cannot serve. The depot scheme funds the foundation; the duty-cycle map decides what the foundation should carry.
The grant covers charge points and civil costs, but the project’s true budget is wider: the grid connection upgrade, the canopy or protection works, the management software, the maintenance contract and the staff time to run the transition. The fleets that cost the whole project before applying find the grant changes a marginal case into a good one; the fleets that cost only the funded lines discover the unfunded third at contract stage. The scheme’s structure - one application, all sites, fixed completion deadline - rewards the fleet that arrives with the whole project already costed, and quietly punishes the one that applied on the headline percentage.
Infrastructure projects in operating depots succeed or stall on the people who work around them: the shunters who need the new reversing pattern, the night staff who become the charging operators, the transport office whose parking plan the chargers just rearranged. The fleets that brief early - why the chargers are coming, what changes on which date, who to call when a unit faults - avoid the quiet sabotage of a workforce that learned about the project from the trench across the yard. Electrification is sold to boards on carbon and cost; it is delivered by the person plugging in at midnight.