EV charging
Commercial EV fleet charging in South Africa — where do I start?
Fleet charging is an electrical capacity and management project first — not just buying wallboxes. Start with how many vehicles return daytime vs overnight, whether the site is single- or three-phase, and whether solar/BESS can cut TOU peaks. Then choose AC vs DC, load management and metering so drivers and finance teams both get clean data.
Updated 26 October 2026 · Illustrative ranges — not a formal quote or legal advice.
Answer first: A fleet depot that orders twenty wallboxes without a load study will either trip the supply or overspend on unused amps. Map dwell time, energy per vehicle per day, and the site’s notified maximum demand. Only then pick hardware. Solar and commercial BESS frequently save more rand than shaving a few thousand off each charger sticker price.
Discovery questions (week one)
- How many vehicles, what usable kWh, what daily kilometres?
- Do they park 8 hours, 14 hours, or turn in 90 minutes?
- Is the erf three-phase? What is the current NMD / breaker headroom?
- Which tariff (TOU / megaflex-style / municipal commercial) applies after 17:00?
- Can roof or carport PV offset daytime top-ups?
AC vs DC for fleets
| Pattern | Typical fit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Overnight return-to-base | 7–22 kW AC Type 2 | Cheapest energy path; needs diversity control |
| Mid-shift top-up | DC 40–150 kW shared | Higher capex; fewer pins if dwell is short |
| Mixed vans + cars | AC majority + 1 DC | Avoid overbuilding DC “for show” |
Connectors: Type 2 AC / CCS2 DC for modern fleets — connectors.
Load management is the product
Site controllers and OCPP backends enforce a depot amperage cap while reporting per-bay kWh for cost allocation. Without them, cold Monday mornings synchronise every battery management system and the transformer becomes the bottleneck — load management.
Solar + BESS on the same erf
Daytime PV into AC chargers is the cleanest saving when vehicles sit at work. BESS can shave peaks or ride through shedding so operations continue. Commercial storage business cases in SA usually start with tariff management, not vanity backup — commercial BESS, commercial solar. Export credits remain modest versus avoided import.
Load shedding operations
Decide which bays (if any) sit on generator or BESS-backed buses. Fuel cost for diesel generators per EV-km can erase petrol savings — measure it. Public battery-backed DC (where available) is a contingency, not a depot strategy. SAEV / DriveElectric tariff chatter matters for corridor cars, not for home-base energy.
Metering, tax and driver behaviour
Separate submeters or OCPP session data keep SARS / internal recharges cleaner when staff also plug in private cars. Workplace policy should state private vs company kWh rates — workplace charging.
Hardware shortlist hygiene
Prefer brands with SA distributor paths (Schneider, Zaptec, ChargePoint SA, Autel, EVBox, Delta, ABL, Teltonika and peers; trade routes via wholesalers including SONAH for some lines). Compare SLA hours, spare modularity and OCPP version — brands (home-oriented list still useful for AC SKUs).
Compliance pack
- Registered electrical contractor, CoCs per DB section.
- SANS 10142 practices; EV clause context 6.16.8 in Ed. 3.3 draft enquiry text.
- Landlord / parkade approvals; fire plan updates.
- If exporting or paralleling large inverters, SSEG / NERSA thresholds — SSEG size logic scales into commercial registration advice.
Phased rollout
Start with a pilot bay row, measure diversity for 60 days, then expand. Oversizing civil ducts on day one is cheap; oversizing live electrical capacity on day one is not.
SA caveats
Tariffs, NMD rules and landlord policies vary by metro and parkade. Educational only — run a proper engineering study before capex approval.
Quick FAQ
Do we need 22 kW on every bay? Rarely — match onboard chargers and dwell.
Is V2G a fleet revenue line yet? Not as a standard metro product — V2H/V2G.
Can staff use public DC instead? Possible but usually dearer per kWh than depot AC.
How to read a quote without getting lost
Demand a single-line diagram, a clear labour vs hardware split, and the assumptions behind any “payback” number. If savings use last year’s crisis tariff increases forever, re-run the model flat. Ask what happens if export credits fall or fixed network charges rise at the next July schedule. Keep emails — verbal promises about municipal approvals evaporate when staff rotate.
Money first, then resilience
South African buyers often flip the order: they buy for Stage 6 anxiety and only later discover the bill maths. Flip it back. Size for self-consumption and tariff reality, then layer enough battery for the outages you actually live through. A slightly smaller compliant system that is registered and monitored beats a oversized grey-import stack that never finishes SSEG.
Documents to keep in one folder
CoC, inverter NRS certificate, battery warranty PDF, SSEG approval, as-built diagrams, serial numbers, and app login details. When you sell the house or claim warranty, this folder is worth more than another brochure. Photograph the DB before and after works. Store cloud copies — paper in a garage floods.
Common salesperson scripts to challenge
“Export will pay for the system,” “batteries are optional fluff,” “you don’t need municipal registration,” “this inverter is the same as the NRS one,” “V2G will make you money next year.” Each script has a grain of truth wrapped around a costly exaggeration. Ask for the primary metro PDF or certificate page, not a WhatsApp forward.
Maintenance that actually protects savings
Glance at the monitoring app weekly for unexpected grid import spikes. After hail or severe dust, inspect panels from the ground. Keep vegetation from shading the bottom row. Test the changeover / backup path before the next heavy shedding week — not during it. Replace surge devices after known nearby strikes if your electrician recommends it.
When to get a second opinion
Any quote that requires a supply upgrade, three-phase conversion, roof structural steel, or estate litigation risk deserves a second installer or an independent assessor. Comparison is why Solar News 24 pushes structured quote briefs — different firms catch different constraints on the same roof.
Putting this advice to work in a South African suburb
Start with last winter’s municipal bills and a simple spreadsheet: kWh imported, fixed charges, and any estimated kilometres if an EV is in the picture. Walk the DB with a registered electrician before you fall in love with a hardware brand. Confirm whether your roof needs structural sign-off and whether the estate has rules about visible conduit. If solar is part of the plan, decide export vs zero-export early because meter changes and prepaid migrations (especially City Power exporters moving to TOU conventional) alter the savings story. For batteries, insist on LiFePO₄ chemistry for home cycling unless you have a specialist reason otherwise, and read usable kWh and warranty throughput — not only the sticker kWh. For EV charging, default to a ~7.4 kW Type 2 wallbox with load management on a dedicated circuit and a CoC. Use public DC for travel corridors, comparing live app rates (DriveElectric’s documentation of SAEV Richmond near R3.49/kWh versus GridCars near R7.35/kWh is a reminder that prices diverge). Keep Stage 6 cover sized to essentials first; do not empty the house battery into the car unless the system was designed that way. Re-check July tariff annexures every year. None of this is glamorous — it is how SA households keep more rand while staying on the right side of SANS 10142, NRS 097 and municipal SSEG desks.
If you only remember four numbers from the wider Solar News 24 desk: metro export credits roughly 108–185 c/kWh incl. VAT in 2026/27; home EV energy often R53–R85 per 100 km at typical residential rates; wallbox all-in often R17k–R35k+; and NERSA’s ≤100 kW distributor registration vs above-100 kW NERSA path. Everything else is detail that belongs on your quote checklist and in your document folder.