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The Sizing Logic That Works for Schools
School charging has one big advantage: dwell time. Staff cars sit parked for seven hours, so a 7kW socket fully recharges anything on the car park during a school day. Nobody needs a fast turnaround, which means one socket comfortably serves two or three EV driving staff on a rota or first come basis.
Count the EVs in the staff car park today, add the ones on order, divide by two, and you have a sensible opening position. A school with eight staff EVs starts well with four sockets. The grant’s future need rule helps here, you do not need to prove current demand, an honest projection qualifies.
Build the Infrastructure Once, Add Sockets Later
The expensive part of school charging is not the chargers, it is the trench across the car park and the switchgear feeding it. Size those for the five year picture and adding sockets later becomes an afternoon’s work rather than a second civils project.
The 40 socket grant allowance makes phasing painless. Claim for phase one now, return for phase two when demand justifies it, same scheme, same site, remaining allowance. Trusts running rollouts across schools use exactly this pattern.
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When to Size Bigger From Day One
Two cases justify going larger immediately. Schools planning public charging revenue want enough sockets to make evening and weekend sessions worth a detour, typically four bays minimum in a visible position. And schools switching minibuses to electric need dedicated higher use sockets that do not compete with staff cars. Both change the design, which is exactly what the free survey is for.
