As the cost of petrol and diesel continues to rise, it’s understandable that businesses may be looking to make the move to electric vehicles.

New funding is available to help more businesses install infrastructure and electric vehicle (EV) charge points to get them ready for increasing the number of electric vehicles in their fleet.

One of those funding schemes is the electric vehicle infrastructure grant for staff and fleets, which aims to offer financial support to small and medium-sized businesses that are looking to install charging points at their locations.

To access the grant, a business just needs to register online, and then an installer approved by the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) can make claims for the work completed on a company’s behalf.

Insight Energy, based in Ipswich, is an OZEV-approved installer. Since January 2021, the company has installed more than 350 EV charging points for domestic and commercial customers across East Anglia – including those covered by government grants.

“We support customers at every stage of the process from applying for the grants through to installation and commissioning” says Kristian Day, managing director of Insight Energy.

He adds that the grants can make it more cost-effective for businesses to transition their entire fleets to electric – especially as they don’t have to install all of the charging points at the same time.

"The new funding is designed to future-proof businesses by contributing towards the infrastructure costs involved with both active and provisioned spaces, which enables businesses to expand their EV charging options retrospectively with little effort and further investment.” Kristian explains.

“At Ipswich Sports Club, for example, we installed six active charge points ready to go and four provision spaces, so in the future, they can literally turn them on as and when demand hits.”

As experts on EV charging, Insight Energy works closely with commercial customers to ensure the products it installs are the right fit for the business, and the ongoing management is kept to a minimum.

“If we were selling mobile phones, everybody knows Apple and Samsung are the best products out there because they've been tried and tested for over a decade,” said Kristian. “Whereas with EV charging solutions, it’s difficult to keep track of new options entering the market and how best to maximise the overall return.

“We aim to offer a bespoke service that ensures each customer gets exactly what they need based on their exact requirements. Every customer is different from the next, and taking the time to understand their need in detail ensures we cover every base.”

Insight Energy also specialises in solar and battery storage solutions, which can often integrate with EV charging at home and work. The company’s ability to bring these three renewable solutions together can help customers save money at a time when the cost of gas and electricity is soaring.

Whether you have an existing solar array and are looking to add EV charging, or want to become less dependent on the grid, Kristian and his team will be very happy to chat through how best to approach things.

Please contact Insight Energy on hello@insightenergy.uk or 01473 716609. For more information, visit www.insightenergy.uk