What EV charger? - a minefield of choice
In this blog, I briefly talk about the challenges that hosts face regarding providing an EV charger for guests to have the convenience of charging at the holiday let, and how to fairly charge for it.
We realised that Anglesey isn’t particularly blessed with an abundance of dedicated charge points (DCP). It was paramount that we invested in an EV charger during our renovations.
As we drive an ICE vehicle (I’m beginning to understand some of the buzz words in the EV world now 🤓), we had a challenge looking for something that would fit our requirements of a discrete but smart charger that we could control remotely.
* Granny cables are an absolute no-no as they not only pose a fire-risk, but also void our insurance, so leave those at home.
Challenge - how to fairly price for charging?
With the spiralling energy costs we’re all facing, the challenge was to find the fairest way of charging guests for using our DCP. Some holiday let owners provide free EV charging as an attraction. Initially, we considered this, but for us, it’s not sustainable to offer free charging, especially as more and more guests drive electric cars in the future. Also, we don’t offer free fuel for guests who don’t drive EVs, so we have to have a level playing-field.
When we opened for bookings at the end of January 2022, our ‘finger in the air’ 
policy priced a nominal £10 per stay extra, regardless of the number of nights. It’s since proved to be not enough to cover costs.
As the charger isn’t that old, we’re not in a position to replace it with a ‘charge-as-you-go’ or contactless-payment type of unit. We had to find a fair solution …
Pay-per-charge - Square Up Charging
Enter Square Up Charging … We came across this relatively new company via one of the holiday let forums.
How it works is very simple. We have a bespoke QR code stuck to the charger that the company has provided for us.
Guests simply scan our QR Code when they visit to set up a charging session.
After entering card payment details, which is preauthorised, similar to pay-at-the-pump, guests can select and pay for however much charge they need – whether this be to a specific battery %, number of miles, or just a time (e.g. 30 mins).
Once the session timer is up, a text message is sent to both host and guest and prompted to unplug. The current costs are displayed during the charging session and the price charged after the session. Easy peasy!
Visit Square Up Charging for further info:
https://www.squareupcharging.co.uk
Download our Electric Vehicle Charging Policy for further details. Happy charging!
4 thoughts on “EV Charger Guest Pricing”
This sounds simpler than many of the commercial charging sites where you have to download an App and register them preload with money. Well done and good luck on your endeavours. We visited Anglesey for one day last year getting as far that town with the long name!!!!
Hi Neil
Thank you for your great feedback! We had a couple of sets of guests road test this for us and the feedback from the guests was very positive – very simple to set up and use. There’ll be an option to stop/start the electrical supply automatically in the future. This method seems to be the fairest way we can think of for charging and we all have piece of mind. I’ve expanded on this on a new website page, which clearly states our current tariff.
https://gwendon.co.uk/electric-vehicle-charger/
If you’re ever planning a visit to Anglesey, do bear us in mind!
Thank you for this article. May I also add that maintenance is one important step to lessen the expenses. A well maintained charger will be more efficient.
Hi Monica
You’re welcome. That’s very useful to know about the ongoing maintenance, thank you 🙂