Gridserve

Gridserve Sustainable Energy Limited, stylised as GRIDSERVE, is a British company founded in 2017¹ to develop, own and operate critical infrastructure for sustainable energy production. Gridserve opened the UK's first all-electric car charging forecourt in 2020, with the second opening in April 2022 and plans to introduce several more in the coming years to charge electric vehicles with 100% renewable energy, supporting the UK's transition to carbon neutrality. The company capitalises its name.

Gridserve Sustainable Energy Limited, stylised as GRIDSERVE, is a British company founded in 2017 to develop, own and operate critical infrastructure for sustainable energy production. Gridserve opened the UK's first all-electric car charging forecourt in 2020, with the second opening in April 2022 and plans to introduce several more in the coming years to charge electric vehicles with 100% renewable energy, supporting the UK's transition to carbon neutrality. The company capitalises its name.

Activities

Gridserve has business activities across three key sectors: solar energy, electric vehicle charging and electric vehicle leasing. Together, these make up the company's Sun-to-Wheel ecosystem. The company owns and operates photovoltaic power stations, also known as hybrid solar farms, supplying renewable electricity to the National Grid. Onsite batteries allow more efficient energy storage and release. Some of the solar modules are bifacial, allowing them to harvest energy from both sides of the panel. Gridserve has installed over 240,000 bifacial solar panels generating 62GWh of solar energy annually. This includes a site at Clay Hill in Bedfordshire - one of the UK's first subsidy-free solar farms - and sites in Hull and York totalling 60.4MW generating power for Warrington Borough Council. In addition, Gridserve installs and operates a network of electric charging hubs, with over 540 chargers in 165 locations claiming to add 10 million miles worth of electric vehicle charge (as of December 2022). Operating large multiple-charger 'Electric Super Hubs' in motorway service locations, Gridserve has 142 'High Power' chargers delivering up to 350 kW of EV charging power as well as two of its own electric forecourt sites in Braintree and Norwich with 35 High Power chargers between them. Gridserve has agreed a partnership with Paua, who provide electric vehicle charge cards, for access to their charging sites. Through Gridserve Car Leasing, the company acts as a vendor and comparison site for the leasing of electric vehicles, with 100 trees planted for every car leased. Leased EV customers have the full cost of charging at Gridserve locations for three months covered. In August 2024, Gridserve's founder Toddington Harper announced plans to expand the business internationally under the name Gridserve Global. To focus on this, he was succeeded as executive chairman by Roy Williamson.

Electric Highway

In July 2021, it was announced that Gridserve had purchased Ecotricity's charging network "the Electric Highway" which has chargers at almost all UK motorway services. In the first phase, all Electric Highway sites were replaced with more modern devices and contactless payment. This was targeted for September 2021. In fact, most sites except for Welcome Break were upgraded by late 2021; the Welcome Break sites were delayed but completed by April 2022. In the next phase, Gridserve added "Electric Super Hubs" with 6 to 12 High Power chargers (up to 350 kW) at many service areas operated by Moto. The first hub (Rugby) was built in 2021, and by May 2022 hubs were operating in Swansea, Exeter, Burton-in-Kendal and Thurrock. , Gridserve operates Electric Super Hubs in 18 service area locations operated by Moto, including sites at Heston, Reading, Wetherby, Woolley Edge and Washington services. The total Electric Highway network comprises 160 locations, with chargers powered by 100% net zero carbon energy from Gridserve's hybrid solar and battery farms. All chargers accept contactless payment and feature CCS and CHAdeMO connectors.

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Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1339681814 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.