Powering Europe’s Fastest-Growing EV Charging Network with UniFi

Overview

Electra is Europe’s leader in ultra-fast electric vehicle (EV) charging, dedicated to accelerating the transition to sustainable mobility through cutting-edge infrastructure and supply-chain excellence. Founded in 2021, the company designs, deploys, and operates high-power charging infrastructure that powers electric vehicles across urban centers, commercial hubs, and major highway corridors.

From high-capacity "ElectraBox" modular charging stations to seamless digital driver experiences, Electra is at the forefront of energy transition technology—delivering reliable, ultra-fast charging powered by 100% green energy to keep personal vehicles and commercial fleets moving without delay.

Electra at a Glance

• European Footprint: Operating 750+ ultra-fast charging stations housing over 4,500 active charging spots across critical transit and urban hubs.
• International Presence: Rapidly expanding market leadership across 10 European countries, scaling from a standing start at an industry-leading pace of a new station opened every single day.
• Operational Excellence: Maintaining a 98.5% station uptime powered by proactive, 24/7 central Network Operations Center (NOC) monitoring and automated remote management.
• Core Mission: Accelerating the clean energy transition by delivering ultra-fast, seamless, and frictionless charging experiences to EV drivers across the continent.

Electra treats every charging site like an enterprise branch office. Each station requires robust routing, switching, edge video storage, and physical security—designed to run unattended in outdoor conditions for a 10 to 15-year lifespan. Behind every charger array sits an ElectraBox: a compact, standardized networking cabinet connecting chargers, cameras, Wi-Fi antennas, and point-of-sale systems back to central operations.

The Challenge

Scaling a distributed critical infrastructure network across a continent required solving five key requirements:

• Rapid, Templatized Deployments: With daily station launches, network builds inside each ElectraBox had to be fully standardized and deployable in hours without custom per-site engineering.
• 24/7 Remote Operations & Uptime: Maintaining a 98.5% station uptime guaranteed real-time visibility across 10 countries from a central Network Operations Center (NOC) without dispatching on-site technicians.
• Adaptive Hardware Sizing: Station footprints range from small 2-charger urban sites to 18-charger highway hubs. Electra needed an adaptable hardware matrix that avoided over-provisioning small sites or under-provisioning large ones.
• Unified Physical Security: Every station required high-definition camera coverage for driver safety and asset protection, managed under the exact same platform as the core network.
• Zero Recurring Overhead: Managing thousands of nodes across Europe required predictable, license-free hardware scaling.

Why UniFi: The Strategic Choice for Global Connectivity

Electra chose UniFi because it transforms the massive operational challenge of building Europe's fastest-growing EV network into a simple, repeatable blueprint. By replacing fragmented, multi-vendor complexity with a unified UniFi ecosystem inside every ElectraBox, Electra secured the exact formula needed to scale: right-sized hardware performance, single-pane management across 10 countries, and zero-license, predictable economics.

Electra standardized its entire European charging infrastructure on the UniFi ecosystem.

• Dream Machines as the Station Brain: Every ElectraBox relies on a UniFi Dream Machine (primarily the UDM Pro) as an all-in-one router, firewall, and UniFi Protect NVR.
• Adaptive Sizing Matrix: Engineering teams calculate exact port counts and PoE budgets per site. Smaller sites run on USW-16-PoE or USW-24-PoE switches paired with a UDM-Pro. High-density highway hubs utilize USW-48-PoE switches alongside UDM-Pro-Max gateways for higher routing headroom and dual-drive redundancy.
• Single-Pane-of-Glass Management: Network health, Wi-Fi connectivity, and UniFi Protect security cameras are monitored through one central cloud console—eliminating fragmented management tools.
• License-Free Ecosystem: UniFi’s zero-subscription model allows Electra to scale thousands of network devices and cameras across Europe without recurring software costs.

Standardized Architecture & Hardware Footprint

Every Electra charging station operates as an autonomous, self-contained site centered around the ElectraBox—a standardized networking cabinet engineered for 10-to-15-year outdoor durability.

• Gateway & Core: A UniFi Dream Machine (UDM Pro/Max) serves as the site's router, firewall, and local NVR.
• PoE Switching: A UniFi PoE Switch (USW-16/24/48-PoE) delivers tailored power and data distribution based on the site's charger and device count.
• Wireless Connectivity: UniFi Outdoor APs (U6 Mesh) provide wireless coverage for driver access and POS systems.
• Edge AI Surveillance: UniFi Protect Cameras (G5/G6 Domes) deliver real-time security, vehicle analytics, and video archiving locally at the edge.
• Site IoT & Automation: UniFi Relays and PoE Sirens handle physical gate control, barrier automation, and site alarm triggers.

Across all 750+ stations in 10 countries, this entire stack connects back to UniFi Site Manager, giving Electra’s central NOC a single-pane-of-glass view for zero-touch provisioning, real-time alerts, and remote maintenance without sending technicians on-site.

Core Gateways & Management Consoles

• UDM Pro: 768 units (Primary gateway core per ElectraBox)
• UDM SE: 6 units
• UniFi Cloud Key Gen2 Plus (UCK G2 Plus): 3 units

PoE Switching & Power Distribution

• USW 24 PoE: 427 units (Standard site switching backbone)
• USW 48 PoE: 232 units (High-density site switching backbone)
• USW 16 PoE: 111 units (Compact site switching backbone)

Video Surveillance & Edge AI Cameras

• G5 Dome: 2,040 units (Primary station perimeter and charger surveillance)
• G4 Dome: 188 units
• G6 Dome: 138 units (Next-generation AI station surveillance)
• G5 Bullet: 68 units
• AI Series & Specialty Cameras: G6 Pro 360 (2), AI 360 (1), AI Dome (1), AI Pro (1), AI Key (1)

Wireless & Site Connectivity

• FlexHD: 746 units
• U6 Mesh: 20 units
• U7 Pro: 5 units
• AC Mesh: 1 unit

IoT, Access & Alarm Infrastructure

• Siren PoE: 267 units (Automated site deterrence)
• SuperLink Gateway: 2 units
• USL Relay: 2 units (Gate & barrier local automation)
• UA G3 (UniFi Access): 2 unit
• UA Hub Door (UniFi Access): 2 unit

Future Outlook: Smart Charging Sites & On-Device AI

Electra is evolving its stations into intelligent, fully automated infrastructure hubs.

The fleet is expanding its IoT footprint using USL Relays for automated site access (controlling physical gates and barriers) and environmental sensors to monitor critical cabinet health in real time. On the surveillance front, Electra is transitioning its camera fleet to the UniFi G6 series. Embedded Edge AI capabilities enable local incident detection, automated License Plate Recognition (LPR), and charger usage analytics directly on the camera—delivering instant responsiveness without saturating site backhaul links.

By pairing zero-license scaling with an adaptable hardware platform, UniFi has turned infrastructure networking into a solved problem—allowing Electra to focus entirely on expanding Europe's fast-charging network.