Northgate Vehicle Hire Case Study
We are electrifying Northgate Vehicle Hire’s sites across the UK for use by their vehicles and fleet vehicles.
The Client - Northgate Vehicle Hire
Northgate Vehicle Hire is the UK’s largest B2B light commercial vehicle rental and mobility solutions provider, with the mission to give businesses the reliable vans they need with minimum fuss; harnessing a fleet of over 50,000 vehicles and state of the art workshops.
In 2021, ChargedEV were acquired by ZIGUP PLC, the group Northgate Vehicle Hire are a part of, to accelerate ChargedEV’s scale and enhance the mobility solutions provider’s offering, as well as the investment giving Northgate Vehicle Hire what they needed to provide a future proofed solution to EV charging for staff, it’s fleet and customer vehicles throughout the UK.
142
Charging Sockets
8700+
Charging Sessions
71+ MWh
Electricity Delivered
513,000+
Electric Miles
Over 94,500kg
CO2 Saved
*Figures as of February 2024
The Requirement
Within the transition to electric, and the investment in their workshops, Northgate Vehicle Hire’s electrification strategy of course encompassed electric vehicle charging, both as a solution for their customers and infrastructure within their own network.
A challenge, that comes with many sites, was that some of Northgate’s sites had limited available capacity on the electricity supply, meaning in phase one of this project we would need to utilise what was available before upgrading the supply.
Most of the installations take place on busy workshops, with multiple vehicles arriving, leaving and being serviced – meaning we would have to work around their schedule and cause as little disruption as possible. This includes the installation of cables and cable trays, and connecting the charge points to the main incoming supply.
The Solution
To combat the challenges that we faced with the limited capacity available at some of the sites, we utilised Easee’s unique load balancing capabilities to navigate the issue and allow multiple vehicles to charge at a lower power rate.
Throughout the project we continue to liaise with each branch manager and agree on a suitable space to install the chargers, ensuring that the solution would fit each branch with different needs. This meant that we would install the same solution, and take advantage of the capabilities of our products to be both floor or wall mounted.
With Northgate Vehicle Hire being a thriving business with vehicles that needed to be in and out of workshops, we needed to ensure that we connected at the right time – this was different for each branch. We planned the connection around them, early mornings or evening time to not disrupt their operation.
Planning was also put in place to accommodate the busy workshop schedule to ensure that there was as little disruption as possible. We would lay out a plan to each branch on the phases of the installation, and where we would be undertaking groundworks, running cable and installing ancillaries like cable tray. Some parts of workshops or car parks would have to be closed off; doing this in stages ensured the disruption was kept to a minimum.
The electrification of the Northgate Vehicle Hire sites is planned to be done in phases. Phase one of this project included the installation of 160 charge points across the UK, with the solution designed as 22kW Easee chargers, a mixture of floor and wall mounted solutions, customer crash barriers branded to Northgate Vehicle Hire’s specification, 3-phase Type 2 charging cables at each site and custom bay marking all coupled with our custom Chargeasy platform.
Christopher Jones, Branch Operations Director for Northgate Vehicle Hire said:
“All we needed to do was choose which sites we wanted Charging facilities – the rest we left to ChargedEV!
The team have visited our sites, engaged with the teams and worked out collectively where the best place would be for the charging facilities.
A professional pack is sent to us for review and sign off to make sure all parties are happy with the placement of the chargers and the subsequent costings.
From day one to completion the ChargedEV team take full control of the project and ensure completion to the highest standard.
We have had 12 sites completed to date with a further 24 planned, the process from start to finish is seamless.”
When asked about the solution we provided, and how it fits the needs at each branch, he continued:
“We have a rough idea of the charging capacity we required for each site and this is checked and validated by the ChargedEV team.
Once in agreement of the number of chargers required, we collectively agree the type of chargers we will need based on the volume of vehicles at each branch.
We keep one eye on future proofing branches and making sure that any groundworks will cover us for future additions should / when they be required.
Each of our branches are then visited post installation and I am delighted with the works that have been carried out at each branch.”
