Grants for Electric Vehicle charge points

I have been fielding an increasing number of questions from business owners about Electric Vehicles in the past couple of months and I know several of my colleagues are experiencing the same. I am currently pulling together a factsheet on the tax benefits of electric vehicles for business owners and this will also be one aspect covered in our forthcoming webinar ‘Green Mobility for businesses and their employees – focus on Electric Vehicles’. For now, I have set out below an overview of ‘Grant schemes for electric vehicle charging infrastructure’. I will focus on the ‘Workplace Charging Scheme’ as this is arguably the most relevant grant scheme covered for business owners. However, it should be noted that other schemes are covered at including a Home charge Scheme.

Workplace Charging Scheme

This scheme appears to have become (re)operational earlier this month judging by the dates of the guidance material. Click HERE for more information.

High level details as follows:

	*Details (extracts)*
Overview	The Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) is a voucher-based scheme that provides eligible applicants with support towards the upfront costs of the purchase and installation of electric vehicle (EV) charge points.
Eligibility	The WCS is open to businesses, charities and public sector organisations that meet the applicant and site eligibility criteria (see further below)
Applicant criteria	Each applicant must: · be a registered business, charity or public sector organisation · declare a need for EV charging equipment, or an intent to encourage uptake among their staff and/or fleet (you do not need to possess a plug-in EV) · be located in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland (applicants in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man are not eligible) · have dedicated off-street parking for staff and/or fleet use only · have parking facilities that are clearly associated with the applicant premises and be either on-site or at a reasonable distance from the workplace · own the property or have consent from the landlord for charge points to be installed at all the sites listed in the application
Site eligibility	Each site must: · have a minimum power supply of 3kW to each individual socket that is not diminished by their simultaneous use · have no more than one socket installed for each accessible parking space · be for staff and/or fleet use
Grant	The grant covers up to 75% of the total costs of the purchase and installation of EV charge points (inclusive of VAT), capped at a maximum of: · £350 per socket · 40 sockets across all sites per applicant – for instance, if you would like to install them in 40 sites, you will have 1 socket available per site
How the scheme works	After applying using the online application form, successful applicants are issued with a unique identification voucher code by email, which can then be given to any OZEV-authorised WCS installer.
State Aid	Applicants will need to declare that, by receiving the grant, they (or the single undertaking of which they are part) do not exceed the de mimimis state aid limit of €200,000 in the past 3 fiscal years.

There are a number of additional rules and criteria to be complied with. There are also aspects which the website encourages potential applicants to do, including:

• read the Energy Saving Trust’s advice on large fleets
• discuss their needs with one or more authorised WCS installers as the charge point requirements may differ depending on the business need and installers are only authorised to install models on the Workplace Charging Scheme approved charge point list

I strongly advise anyone interested in making an application invest the time in reading through the various materials.

PKF Francis Clark

Our webinar, part of popular Deep Dive series, will take place at 12-12:45pm on 11 May 2022. For more details and to book your place click HERE.