RAW Charging to become SolarBotanic’s first ‘EV Tree’ customer
SolarBotanic Trees has reached an agreement with RAW Charging for the rollout of 200 EV chargers across the UK and Europe.
The SolarBotanic Tree is a solar power system that generates electricity and will initially be integrated into the existing RAW Charging site infrastructure to supplement its renewable power requirement, while in the longer term the SolarBotanic Tree will incorporate RAW’s hardware and battery storage into the solar tree structure.
The agreement will see SolarBotanic supply RAW Charging with 200 co-branded solar trees as part of its network of commercial electric vehicle (EV) charging sites currently being rolled out across the UK and Europe. Deliveries will start in mid-2023 and complete in 2024.
Chris Shelley, SolarBotanic CEO, said: “This is a very exciting partnership, as we couldn’t ask for a more dynamic growth focussed partner in RAW Charging. This launch programme is worth close to £3M, coming less than 6 weeks after we launched the new company. We now have over £25M in our sales pipeline from all over the world since we launched. Our challenge is unlikely to be the market, but more our ability to grow quickly enough to meet a clearly nascent demand.
“We are currently starting to look at various regional locations for our manufacturing and assembly centre, a decision that will be driven by availability of a skilled workforce and supply chain that can follow our rapid growth plan.”
The target markets for SolarBotanic Trees is commercial parking requiring EV-charging capability in aesthetically demanding locations such as premium business parks, corporate headquarters, hotels, airports, exhibition centres as well as the residential sector.
Bruce Galliford, CEO of RAW Charging, said: “We are delighted to be working with SolarBotanic Trees on delivering aesthetically attractive solar power systems at our sites in the UK. This partnership is the next step in RAW’s delivery programme as it rapidly grows its asset base across the UK and Europe.”
