HEALTHCARE EV CHARGING SYSTEMS
That puts you in control, allowing you to offer multiple services, and collect better data. You may even want separate apps for staff and the public, or a dedicated app for staff, and integration with other widely-used EV chargepoint apps for the public. A cloud-based platform can be the back end for your own payment app, but also allow anyone else’s payment app to integrate, so drivers have options.
As the UK’s largest employer, and home to almost 500,000 car parking spaces, the NHS ‘has an advantage of scale that justifies considerable thought to getting its EV deployment strategy right’.
the opportunity that software can present to unlock the full benefits and capabilities of that hardware. Indeed, beyond getting chargers in the ground, health estate managers need to think about how they want people to interact with, and pay for, the chargepoints. This is often an afterthought, in that they may assume the chargepoint provider will provide an adequate solution. However, that can be an oversight that leads to systems that are not fit for purpose or become redundant over time.
Considering ‘the whole digital experience’ Thinking of the whole digital experience in its own right – in particular the payment – rather than as a bolt-on, can help ensure that charging infrastructure delivers. Think of the user experience as separate – as a digital platform in the cloud that is lifted away from the physical charger. Once you separate the physical from the digital, you open options to meet user needs and evolve as those needs change. When setting up your EV charging
systems on healthcare estates, therefore, we need to think beyond the charger. Much has been written about getting them in the ground, and we won’t revisit that here. However, in ‘getting them in the ground’ our conversations with industry suggest that the following are points that are often overlooked, and Estates managers of all stripes often wish they had thought about them earlier: n Consider what tariff will work best for you. For instance, how much revenue do you want to generate, or is the goal to incentivise uptake and you simply want to make enough to cover running costs? Will this change over time? Do you want different payment systems and rates for fleets, staff, and visitors? You may even want to set up more complex systems, such as ones where all staff get, say, 10 hours per week at a reduced rate, but then revert to the market rate. This is all very hard to do with physical infrastructure, but it is much easier if
the physical charger is only starting and ending the change, and all the data and payment processing exists in a cloud- based software platform, that can be setup and adjusted remotely.
n Being able to set, vary, and update tariffs across your estate will make your life easier, as charging infrastructure expands and needs change. As new legislation aimed at improving the chargepoint experience looms, requiring simple payments, multiple options, and interconnections between different payment schemes, it’s clear that future EV chargepoints must combine the physical charger with a digital equivalent in the cloud.
n Do you want your own app? Most NHS Trusts will partner with chargepoint operators on deployment, who will usually have their own app through which users can access the chargepoint. However, perhaps you also want your own proprietary app – or to upgrade an existing app to allow EV charging?
n Will you need to handle multi-party payments? A growing user frustration is paying for parking and charging. These can be hard to integrate; especially given that many car parks have existing processes for paying for parking. A payment platform can sit as a layer in between, giving the user a single payment, and then splitting the cost between different parking and EV divisions’ bank accounts. The same goes for any multi-party payment. For example, you may want to manage the chargers yourselves, but you will need to pay the chargepoint operators to install and maintain them. One solution to reduce risk could be a cost-sharing arrangement; this could involve a monthly payment of a percentage of revenue. Once a percentage is agreed, dividing the fee into two separate bank accounts upon payment would reduce a lot of administration.
n Do you want to make your chargers more widely available? There will be times when chargers should be exclusively for staff and visitors, but some locations may have quieter times when chargers could be offered to the general public, or to local fleets to charge up, in order to generate more revenue from your chargepoint investment. This may mean putting
The latest figures show that around half of NHS Trusts have an onsite EV charging infrastructure, and 43% are planning to install charging facilities over the next few years.
October 2023 Health Estate Journal 117
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