Businesses around the world face mounting pressure from their employees who no longer see driving electric as a privilege, but a right. Companies with large vehicle fleets or on-site car parks must now take decisive action in providing suitable charging infrastructure or risk damaging their employer brand.

Microsoft, a company better known for its software innovations, wanted to commit to an electric future for its employees in Israel and support the wider business’s commitment of cutting carbon emission by more than half by 2030.

The company’s first ambition was to provide reliable and accessible charge points for employees at its new headquarters in Tel Aviv. Dwell time of the vehicles during the working day meant that 22kW AC chargers were the perfect solution to ensure every company vehicle would leave the site with sufficient charge to get home.

EO Charging enlisted the help of Sonol EVI (part of EO’s international ‘Official Partner Network’) to better understand the challenges and design and install the bespoke charging solution.

Microsoft’s new offices in Tel Aviv were purpose built, but the building managers still faced the dilemma of ensuring there was enough available power for such a large single-site charge point installation.

Site power upgrades can be timely and costly, and so the project required a charging solution that could monitor the amount of power available on-site and distribute it across all charge points to ensure employees could plug-in when convenient for them.

The final challenge was to provide the building managers with an online charge point management platform that enabled them to view their charging infrastructure online and remotely manage and monitor energy usage.

EO Charging, which offers end-to-end charging systems for some of the world’s biggest businesses and fleet operators, was able to create a fully turnkey solution – from charge points and management software through to design and installation.

The project team selected the EO Genius intelligent charging system to make best use of its built-in active load management feature - safely distributing power across the charging infrastructure whilst taking into account the total power requirement of the employee car park.

The 77 EO Genius chargers were connected to three EO Hubs – a separate smart unit that acts as the ‘brain’ of the charging system. Up to 30 EO charge points can be connected to a single EO Hub, ensuring the charging infrastructure is both future proof and scalable.

Once connected to the EO Hub, the building managers were able to restrict access to certain charge points and monitor energy usage, using the EO Cloud, EO’s online charge point management platform.

The project took place in July 2020, Sonol EVI completed the installation in just two weeks.

EO Charging’s approach to solving the challenge of charging at the workplace enabled Microsoft Israel to take its first step towards an electric future. Employees are now able to power their vehicles whilst at work and reduce their carbon emissions when commuting to the Tel-Aviv HQ.

With three EO Hubs installed, the future-proofed charging infrastructure can be cost-effectively scaled alongside the widespread adoption of electric vehicles.