EV charging and solar for business — making them work together

Two things are happening on a lot of business sites at once: the vehicles are going electric, and the roof is going solar. They belong together. Vehicles tend to sit in the car park during the working day — exactly when your panels are generating — so charging them from your own solar is far cheaper than pulling from the grid. But "put chargers in and point solar at them" isn't quite the whole story. Here's how to make the pairing actually work.

Why solar and EV charging fit so well

Solar generates in the middle of the day. A fleet that returns to base, or staff cars parked from 9 to 5, are charging in the middle of the day too. That overlap is the whole point: instead of exporting your midday solar surplus to the grid for a few pence per kWh under the SEG, you use it to charge vehicles, displacing electricity you'd otherwise buy at your full ~28p retail rate.

In other words, EV charging is one of the best ways to lift your solar self-consumption — turning low-value exported units into high-value used ones. (See south-facing vs east-west for why self-consumption is what really drives commercial solar value.)

The bit that catches people out: load management

Here's the technical crux. A bank of EV chargers can draw a lot of power — potentially more than your building's electrical supply can handle on top of everything else. Plug in several fast chargers at once and you can exceed your supply capacity, trip protection, or rack up demand charges.

The answer is smart charging with load management (also called load balancing): a system that monitors how much power is available — your spare supply capacity plus whatever your solar is generating right then — and throttles the chargers to fit. Done well, it lets you charge from solar first, draw spare grid capacity second, and avoid an expensive supply upgrade. Any competent installer designing solar-plus-EV should build this in from the start; if load management isn't in the proposal, ask why.

The grant worth claiming: the Workplace Charging Scheme

If you're installing chargepoints for staff or fleet use, the Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) is live and worth claiming. As of 2026 it covers up to 75% of the purchase and installation cost (including VAT), capped at £500 per socket, for up to 40 sockets across your sites. The scheme runs until 31 March 2027.

The conditions to note:

• You must own the property or have landlord consent.
• You need dedicated off-road parking clearly associated with the premises, for staff or fleet — not customer parking.
• You must use an authorised installer (or you can't claim).
• Available across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

That's a meaningful chunk off the chargepoint side of the project, separate from anything on the solar side.

Solar carports and batteries — the natural extensions

Two pairings worth knowing:

• Solar carports. If your "spare space" is a car park, a solar canopy generates power and shelters the vehicles charging beneath it — a tidy three-in-one. We cover the trade-offs in ground-mount vs roof-mount.
• Battery storage. A battery lets you store midday solar and charge vehicles that only return in the late afternoon or evening, smoothing the mismatch between when you generate and when the vehicles are plugged in. Whether it pays depends on your pattern — see battery storage.

Sanity-check

1. Do vehicles actually park on-site during daylight? If your fleet is out all day and charges overnight, solar's daytime generation won't reach it directly without a battery.
2. Does your electrical supply have headroom for the chargers, and is load management included to avoid an upgrade?
3. Are you claiming the Workplace Charging Scheme (staff/fleet parking, authorised installer)?
4. Is the charging sized to your solar, or just bolted on? The value is in charging from your own generation, not adding grid load.

The bottom line

Solar and workplace EV charging are a strong pairing: daytime sun charges daytime-parked vehicles, converting low-value export into high-value self-consumption. Make sure the design includes smart load management so the chargers live within your supply, claim the Workplace Charging Scheme while it runs (to March 2027), and consider a carport or battery to stretch the fit. Done together, the two investments reinforce each other.

To size the solar side against your usage, run the calculator. For the storage question, see battery storage for commercial solar. Monthly intel: the Brief.

General information, not financial advice. Confirm WCS eligibility and electrical capacity with an authorised installer.