Multi-night stays are one of the best use cases for EV charging. The infrastructure decisions you make now will determine how easily your site scales as EV adoption grows.
Caravan and holiday parks are structurally well suited to EV charging. Guests arrive, park up, and stay for one or more nights — the car is stationary for exactly the period needed to deliver a full charge from a standard 7.4kW smart charger. Rural location, which historically meant poor public charging coverage, is now a positive — sites that offer on-site charging remove the anxiety that would otherwise push EV-driving guests towards alternatives.
This guide covers the pitch power question honestly, what to install now, how motorhomes change the picture, the grants available, and — importantly — how to think about your EV infrastructure over the next five to ten years as demand grows.
In this guide
This is the first question most site operators ask, and it deserves a direct answer. Most UK caravan and holiday parks provide 6A, 10A or 16A power to pitches via hook-up posts. Can that infrastructure support EV charging?
| Pitch supply | Max continuous draw | Equivalent charge rate | Suitable for EV charging? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6A hook-up | 1.4kW | ~8km range/hr | No |
| 10A hook-up | 2.3kW | ~13km range/hr | No |
| 16A hook-up (blue commando) | 3.7kW | ~22km range/hr | Not recommended |
| Dedicated 32A EV circuit | 7.4kW | ~43km range/hr | Yes — with smart charger |
The 6A and 10A supplies are simply too slow to be useful. A guest arriving with a depleted battery on a 6A hook-up would recover roughly 100km of range overnight — enough for some, inadequate for many, and entirely dependent on them bringing their own charging cable and adapter, which is not a guest-facing solution.
The 16A blue commando supply is technically capable of slow EV charging but carries the same risk profile as 3-pin socket charging in hotels: it runs at or near maximum rated current continuously for hours. On aging campsite infrastructure — hook-up posts that may be 15-20 years old — this is a genuine fire risk. It also relies on the guest having the correct cable and adapter, provides no metering, and gives you no ability to manage load across multiple pitches.
The right answer is dedicated EV charging infrastructure, separate from pitch power. It costs more upfront but is the only approach that is safe, manageable, grant-eligible and scalable.
For the majority of caravan and holiday parks, the immediate recommendation is the same as for hotels and B&Bs: 7.4kW tethered smart chargers in a dedicated charging bay, OCPP-compliant, with load management if installing three or more units.
*Per unit, after Workplace Charging Scheme grant. Assumes standard cable run and adequate existing supply.
Central bay over pitch-by-pitch. Locate chargers in a dedicated area of the car park or a central service zone rather than distributing them across pitches. This keeps electrical infrastructure consolidated, makes load management straightforward, and avoids the complexity of running new circuits to individual pitches. Guests drive to the charging bay, plug in, and return to their pitch — the same behaviour as using the on-site facilities block.
Tethered cable essential. Touring guests and motorhome drivers should not need to carry a charging cable to a charge point. Always specify tethered (cable permanently attached, Type 2 connector). Untethered sockets are appropriate for workplaces with employees who carry their own cables — not for a guest-facing installation.
How many units to start with. A practical starting point is one charging bay space for every 20-25 pitches, with a minimum of two units to avoid a single point of failure. More important than initial numbers is future-proofing:
Electric motorhomes are arriving in the market. Adoption is currently low compared to electric cars, but the trajectory is clear — and the guests most likely to be early EV motorhome adopters are experienced tourers who are already familiar with your site.
Electric motorhomes typically carry larger battery packs than cars — 60-100kWh is common, with some models exceeding 120kWh. The good news: a 7.4kW tethered charger serves an electric motorhome just as well as an electric car. The same hardware, the same circuit, the same Type 2 connector. An electric motorhome on a 7.4kW charger overnight recovers 80-100km of range — adequate for most touring day trips.
The main operational difference is session length. A heavily depleted electric motorhome battery (100kWh) takes around 13-14 hours to charge fully at 7.4kW — meaning a single overnight stay may not deliver a complete charge if the vehicle arrived significantly depleted. In practice, most touring guests do not arrive at empty and do not need a 100% charge to depart — but it is worth understanding the physics when advising guests about expectations.
The decisions you make now about EV charging infrastructure will determine how easily your site can scale as EV adoption grows. Installing one or two chargers today is the right immediate step — but thinking through the five to ten year picture at the same time costs nothing and avoids expensive retrofitting later.
Most caravan and holiday parks operate seasonally — typically March/April through October, with some sites open year-round. This affects the payback calculation compared to a hotel operating 52 weeks per year.
A 2.5 year payback on grant-supported infrastructure that then generates ongoing margin is a solid return by any measure. The payback improves as EV guest numbers increase — the calculation above assumes modest utilisation in the early years of deployment.
The secondary revenue case — guests who choose your site over a competitor because you offer EV charging — is harder to quantify but increasingly real. As EV adoption grows, the share of touring guests actively filtering for EV-capable sites will rise every season.
For full eligibility criteria and up-to-date figures for every scheme, see the complete grants guide.
The Caravan and Motorhome Club and the Camping and Caravanning Club are the two dominant membership organisations for UK touring. Both have updated their site directories in recent years — expanding coverage to include glamping and camping alongside traditional caravan pitches, and adding EV charging as a searchable facility filter.
For affiliated sites, this matters practically: a CAMC or C&CC member planning a tour can now filter the club's site finder to show only locations with EV charging. A site without charging simply does not appear in that filtered search — regardless of how good the pitches, facilities or location are.
The action once your chargers are installed: update your facility listing with both clubs immediately, and flag EV charging in your own booking platform, website and any listing on Pitchup, Cool Camping or similar. The guests most likely to be driving EVs are experienced tourers — exactly the demographic that uses club membership and directory search to plan trips.
The 8kW contactless payment rule. Under the Public Charge Point Regulations 2023, any publicly accessible charger at 8kW or above installed after November 2024 must offer contactless payment. A 7.4kW unit is below the threshold and exempt. If your charging bay is accessible to non-guests, check whether the regulations apply to your installation.
Electricity resale. Ofgem confirmed in 2014 that selling electricity from a dedicated EV charge point does not require a supply licence. You can charge guests per kWh without becoming a licensed electricity supplier. Your back-office software handles metering and payment. See the full Ofgem rules section.
Planning permission. EV charger installation at business premises is generally permitted development across England, Scotland and Wales. Sites in National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, or with listed building consent conditions may face additional requirements. Your installer will confirm as part of the site survey.
Site insurance. As noted above, allowing EV charging from existing hook-up posts may affect your policy. A dedicated EV charge point installation by an OZEV-approved installer, on a dedicated circuit, is the approach that keeps your insurance position clean. Check with your insurer before the installation if you have any doubt.