Workplace and Office Car Park Installation

Workplace and office car parks are where the install is engineered around the EV charging as much as the PV. Weekday nine-to-five occupancy matches the solar peak, so self-consumption is high and payback shortens; the design work concentrates on load-balancing and cable sizing so the chargers and the array share the distribution board and the DNO headroom cleanly.

Why installing on a workplace and office car park site is different

Every solar carport is a steel structure engineered to BS EN 1991 wind and snow loads, founded on screw piles or concrete footings from a ground survey, and connected to the grid — but the sequencing, the loads and the funding change by sector. For this sector, the install turns on:

• Solar and Workplace Charging Scheme EV points designed and installed as one job
• Load-balancing and cable sizing engineered to the distribution board and DNO headroom
• Weekday 9-to-5 occupancy matches the PV peak, giving high self-consumption and a ~7-9 year payback
• Staff-facing monitoring and sustainability signage optional on the structure

Sizing, cost and payback

Carports size by parking bay, at roughly 2 kWp per standard space (four to six panels), so this sector's typical 50-500 kWp covers a large part of the car park. At UK yields of about 900 to 950 kWh per kWp, that generates in the region of 45,000-475,000 kWh a year. A full install here typically runs £100k-£600k ex VAT, with simple payback around 8 years before the Annual Investment Allowance and 50% first-year allowance are applied — which shorten it. The steel structure is 40 to 50 per cent of that figure, which is why larger bay counts get materially better value per kWp.

What the install involves on a workplace and office car park site

A workplace install lives or dies on the electrical design. Staff EV charging and the PV array both land on the same distribution board, so we model the site's existing demand and headroom and specify dynamic load management so the chargers throttle around the building's load rather than forcing an early — and expensive — DNO reinforcement. Cable routes from the canopy to the board are set at the groundworks stage, sized for the eventual charger count rather than day-one demand, so you can add sockets later without digging the car park twice. Works are sequenced around staff arrival and departure peaks, with clear communications so the car park never loses more bays than the workforce can absorb on a given day. Because occupancy is predictable and weekday-heavy, we can often phase an office install with almost no net loss of usable spaces. The Workplace Charging Scheme grant applies to these staff bays, so we design the socket count to the 40-socket cap where it makes sense, and we wire the array and chargers so surplus midday generation charges cars rather than exporting at a low rate — the point at which a workplace payback moves from good to genuinely strong.

Consents, compliance and funding for this sector

The Workplace Charging Scheme grant is £500 per socket (from 1 April 2026), up to 75% of cost, for up to 40 sockets, running a final year to 31 March 2027 — a genuine deadline, not manufactured urgency. Do not attach the old under-250-employee cap (that belonged to the closed staff-and-fleets grant). Tax framing is AIA plus 50% First-Year Allowance, never full expensing.

We prepare and submit the planning route (Class OA prior approval in England, Class 9M in Scotland, or full planning in Wales and Northern Ireland) and the DNO G99 grid application on your behalf, and run them in parallel with fabrication. See the planning guide and the grants and funding routes.

A representative install

A professional-services HQ with a 110-space staff car park and a fleet to electrify. We install a 150 kW canopy over about 90 spaces on concrete footings where buried services rule out piles, with 24 EV sockets sized to the board and claimed under the Workplace Charging Scheme. Illustrative.

Whatever the sector, one MCS-certified team holds the whole scope — structure, PV, electrical and grid — with separate written warranties on the structure and the panels and an optional O&M plan, so you know who is accountable for the canopy in year eight.