Hospitality & Destination
Isle of Arran Distillers Blends Heritage and Innovation by Embracing Sustainable EV Charging Solution.
Isle of Arran Distillers is a whisky distillery on the Isle of Arran, Scotland. Established in 1995, the distillery has two sites on the island - their original site, situated in Lochranza at the northern tip of the island, houses the distillery and a visitor center, while the secondary site, situated in Lagg on the southern coast of the island, includes a new distillery, a visitor center, and a restaurant.
Given the amazing potential of Arran Distillers as a tourist destination, Connekt felt that Arran was the perfect location to assist with the installation of EV charging points throughout the business to make it more sustainable. Connekt installed charging points at both distillery sites on Arran and at their head office in Stirling to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles throughout the company and improve their sustainability credentials, while also providing charging facilities for existing EV drivers.
This is a substantial move forward to supporting the charging infrastructure in Ayrshire and Arran which the whole team at Connekt are immensely proud to be a part of.
Johnny Manning - Founder, Connekt,
After carrying out a comprehensive site assessment across the three sites at Lochranza, Lagg, and their head office in Stirling, Connekt recommended installing four 22kw 3-phase Dual Fast Charging solutions across the two distilleries and 7.4kw charging units at the head office.
The charging solution at the Head office in Stirling has been installed to help encourage the uptake of electric vehicles throughout the company, while adding to its sustainability credentials and providing charging facilities for existing EV drivers. The chargers are also managed by the "Get Connekted" software, which tracks electricity usage used for EV charging to allow the finance department to claim available tax reliefs.
To encourage sustainable tourism on the island, the two main distilleries based at Lagg and Lochranza had four 22kw fast charging units installed at each site. The new charging facilities are integrated into Connekt's reliable public charging network and are available for the public to use when they are visiting the distillery. These charging units are connected to the existing power supply via ducting to concrete plinths that support the charging units.
Our in-house team of highly skilled professionals handled all electrical work, groundworks, and installation of the solution with minimal disruption to visitors and operations. The chargers are connected to our advanced cloud-based management system, enabling drivers to sign up through the "Get Connekted" app. This allows the distillery to effectively manage and monitor the charging solution, set preferential tariffs and rates for both guests and staff, generate reports, and create a new revenue stream.
Arran Distilleries and Connekt have successfully contributed to doubling the total number of public charging facilities on the island, just between the two sites. This is fully integrated with our advanced cloud-based platform, which allows visitors to charge their electric vehicles quickly and effortlessly, while also enabling the distillery to centrally manage each site's individual charging solution.
"Connekt recently installed 4 charging points for us at Lagg Distillery and the process couldn't have been smoother. The customers that have used the points have had no issues and the aftercare contact and software have been stellar."
Upon successful installation, the Connekt chargers are integrated with our Get Connekted app. This works alongside our advanced cloud-based operating platform which fully automates 24/7 service delivery, payment processing and energy cost reduction allowing bespoke tariffs to be set which can be used to either monetise the charging facilities to create a new revenue stream or cover the cost of installation.
Our app has been designed to make the entire charging experience as simple as possible. Drivers simply sign up to our Get Connekted app, input their login and payment details and are ready to go. Drivers can search for their nearest charging point to their current location as well as managing their own digital wallet to prepay or top up as when desired.
As part of our commercial partnership with the club, all Ayr United season ticket holders can benefit from discounted charging rates at the stadium facilities via our Get Connekted app.
