Any fleet thinking about electric vans or trucks eventually hits the infrastructure question: vehicles are easy to buy, charging is a project. The Workplace Charging Scheme exists to defuse exactly that - a voucher-based government grant supporting the upfront cost of buying and installing EV chargepoints at business premises. For a depot-based fleet, it can take a meaningful slice out of the electrification entry price, but it comes with mechanics that punish the disorganised.
The grant covers up to 75% of the total cost of purchase and installation of EV chargepoints, VAT included, capped at a maximum of £350 per socket and 40 sockets across all sites per applicant. Forty sockets is a single ceiling however spread: 40 sites at one socket each, or concentrated at one hub depot - the applicant’s choice.
The same site can also benefit from the separate EV infrastructure grant for staff and fleets, which funds the wider installation infrastructure. But the two grants may not fund the same chargepoint - claiming both for the same socket may be viewed as fraud and acted on. Use them as complements on one project, never as duplicates on one socket.
The process runs in a strict order:
Two practical consequences follow. First, apply when the project is ready, not when the idea is fresh: the 6-month voucher life starts at issue, and a voucher that expires while planning permission or grid connection drags on is worthless. Second, if you apply for fewer than 40 sockets you can submit further applications later until you reach the limit - phased electrification is fine, and special rules apply for linked enterprises that stop group structures multiplying the cap.
The applicant must meet the scheme’s eligibility criteria and agree its terms. Two funding-history tests apply, reflecting subsidy control: the applicant must have received - or have pending - less than €200,000 of public support in the past 3 financial years under the de minimis route, or less than the £315,000 minimal financial assistance limit over the same window. For most small and mid-sized fleets this is a formality, but businesses that have drawn other public support should check the arithmetic before applying.
OZEV also reserves the right to terminate or change the scheme - including the grant level - at any time, with up to 4 weeks’ notice where possible. Vouchers already issued are honoured through changes and closure notice periods, but the direction of travel is clear: the scheme is a window, not a permanent entitlement, and “we’ll do it next year” is a strategy that depends on the window staying open.
For a depot fleet the scheme changes the phasing conversation. Overnight charging at base is the cheapest and most reliable charging most electric vans and rigid trucks will ever do, and the grant directly discounts the sockets that enable it. A sensible sequence for a fleet exploring electric:
Do not forget the boring beneficiary: staff. A workplace scheme socket that serves the fleet at night can serve employees’ cars by day, and mixed use is precisely what the staff-and-fleets framing of the accompanying infrastructure grant anticipates. The business case strengthens materially when the same civils work supports both the electric van pilot and the directors’ company cars.
For fleets weighing the decision, the practical starting point is a driver survey: who has off-street parking, who would use workplace charging, and what the shift patterns actually look like. The answers size the installation far better than a guess, and they surface the employees for whom a home-charging contribution is the cheaper and more useful benefit.