SOUTH COAST leasing company CVM plugs a gap with BMW plug-in hybrids supplied to a leading computer company with electricity to spare – and is raising its sights, literally: to rooftop solar panels.
Hampshire-based Complete Vehicle Management (CVM), celebrating its top ten listing in the new LBF T30 and shortlisting for three Leasing Broker Federation awards, has supplied a pair of BMW 330es to the local headquarters of Captec to plug into their new car park chargers and show staff what’s available.
Captec is an award-winning designer and manufacturer of specialist computing platforms engineered to meet the exact requirements of any application, irrespective of complexity or environmental demands.
From mobile tablets and boxed computers through to complex racks and innovative IoT platforms, they “design to any form factor, engineer reliability, provide comprehensive support, guarantee compliance, maximise longevity and overcome the limitations of commercial computing.”
The company profile adds: “Whether it’s keeping the London Underground running, saving lives with medical equipment, securing nations in defence systems or entertaining with ergonomic gaming, our platforms are designed to meet the present and future needs of a continuously evolving world.”
And, being a go-ahead company, over a year ago they decided to install and switch on a solar array with 600 panels, generating a total of 150kW of electricity.
Captec facilities manager Andy Hurley said: “Ever since, we have been monitoring our business electricity usage closely, and so it came as no surprise that month-on-month, approximately 50 per cent of our consumption was drawn from the panels.
“However, we were still exporting electricity to the national grid instead of being able to use it. This led us to look for alternative ways of using the excess electricity, resulting in the installation of electric vehicle charge points to encourage the uptake and usage of plug-in hybrid cars.”
CVM co-founder and commercial director Kevin Connor said:Â “We see so many solar arrays these days there must be quite a few companies with power to spare that could be running their cars for free.
“So now we’re keeping our eyes peeled for potential customers who could benefit!”
“We believe green energy and incentives are vital to the wellbeing of the environment and are constantly on the lookout for technologies and ideas that will enhance our green footprint and reduce our environmental impact.
“We won’t charge for the electricity as we wish to encourage the use of eco-friendly vehicles by staff, and after all, we generate far more electricity than we can use!”
Andy concluded: “Following the installation, a number of our staff have shown a strong interest in purchasing electric vehicles and are eagerly awaiting the launch of cars like the Tesla 3 in the UK.”
How does the solar power supply work
Andy explained: “Captec’s solar panels generate electricity whenever the sun is shining, even during periods of low consumption such as the weekends. We use as much of the solar generated electricity as we can, but as we don’t store it, any excess electricity is fed back to the national grid for use by other consumers.
“We do use some electricity throughout the night, this is supplied from the national grid even if we have generated an excess during the day. Throughout the summer months of long sunny days the amount of solar generated electricity used on average throughout the month can be as much as 60%, dropping to around 15% in the winter months.”
