From the reader. Since the beginning of this year, owners of public charging points have also been able to earn from verified emission reductions. This is due to the fact that public charging points for electric cars have been connected since the beginning of the year as part of the transport energy distribution obligation according to the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED III).
However, Finnish owners of charging points in public use have slowly woken up to taking advantage of this income stream.
The goal of the RED III directive is to increase the share of renewable energy at the EU level to 42.5 percent by 2030. According to the Confederation of Automotive Industry in Finland, half of last year’s first registered cars were rechargeable. More than 70 percent of the cars imported as used were rechargeable, and the share of the entire car stock that is rechargeable is already more than 12 percent.
The rapid electrification of the car fleet makes charging infrastructure even more important for both consumers and property owners, such as municipalities and companies. According to the Energy Efficiency Directive (EPBD), owners of properties with more than twenty parking spaces are obliged to provide charging services.
On the other hand, simply taking into account the needs of customers, employees and tenants, which are part of the operators’ core business, requires the organization of a charging facility. Although the car fleet is now electrifying at a rapid pace, the challenge arises from the fact that the share of rechargeable vehicles in the entire car fleet is still relatively low.
You have to be able to meet the needs today, but the payback period for the mandatory investments in charging infrastructure with charging fees alone will stretch further into the future.
The charging point pays for itself
The new distribution obligation directive brings tangible help to this transitional phase. Thanks to the distribution obligation, a single charging point can generate, for example, additional income of up to one thousand euros a year for the municipality through emission credits.
In practice, this means that a charging point in the yard of a swimming pool, school or shopping center will pay for itself much faster than before the EU directive came into force. Large fast charging networks are talking about hundreds of thousands of euros in improvement in profitability on an annual basis.
Juha Karppinen
product manager, Charging networks & virtual power plant, Virta