EU approves €350m German plan to expand EV fast charging
The European Commission has approved a €350 million scheme to support the rollout of fast charging along German motorways.
The fast charging scheme envisages the deployment of 952 high power charging (HPC) points of typically 150kW in around 200 motorway locations and comes as Japan plans regulations to more than double the output of chargers at motorway service areas to 90kW.
The German scheme will see direct grants for the installation of each HPC point, as well as for the operation of the charging infrastructure. The scheme will be open to all companies active in the construction and operation of recharging infrastructure, and the projects will be selected through an open, competitive and non-discriminatory bidding process.
This follows €1.8bn of incentives approved in December 2022 for 8,500 HPC points in approximately 900 locations in Germany where there are no HPC points or where the existing points are insufficient to address anticipated demand.
The Commission found that the German scheme is necessary and appropriate to allow for the deployment of HPC infrastructure at a large scale under EU state aid rules as it contributes to the EU’s strategic objectives related to the green transition.
The German authorities will have to ensure that the prices for recharging electric vehicles at the newly deployed HPC points are in line with those of comparable existing infrastructure.
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All of this is needed to meet the European Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Masterplan published in 2022 which sees the need for up to 6.8m public charging points by 2030 in order to reach the proposed 55% CO2 reduction for passenger cars. This will need 14,000 public charging points to be installed per week, compared to just 2,000 per week currently, with 184 charging points will be needed for every 100 km of road for cars.
Nikkei in Japan reports that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is developing standards for fast chargers to increase the output to at least 90kW, more than twice the current average, by 2030. For high traffic areas and other places of heavy demand, the plans call for chargers of about 150 kW.
The guidelines also will require installation of chargers every 70km to minimise range anxiety. Japan trails the US, Europe and China in the introduction of electric vehicles as charging is less convenient.
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