The pricing plan for using the standard public charge point network from ESB ecars will commence from 10th August 2020.
Since 2010, the use of standard AC charge points throughout Ireland has been free of charge, with the faster DC rapid chargers incurring a cost-per-charge system in 2019. The price users will pay depends on whether they opt for a pay as you go rate, in which case the cost per kWh is slightly higher at 26.8 cent.
A membership subscription costs €4.60 per month and brings the cost down to 23 cent per kWh. The ESB recommends that electric car drivers who use public charging more than five times per month will gain greater value from switching to the membership subscription model. ESB ecars has seen 11,000 people sign up for its service.
An example of those costs applied to a 40kWh Nissan Leaf and adding 100 kilometres of range from an AC charger will cost €3.41 with the membership subscription and €3.97 using the pay as you go setup.
Continuing improvements to the public network
To date, ESB ecars has upgraded more than 150 charge points across all 26 counties and this action has helped to reduce the amount of downtime the network has experienced. Figures from ESB ecars states that the average uptime is 96 per cent, with the rapid chargers now experiencing 99 per cent reliability.
Niall Hogan, Head of ESB ecars, commented: "We all know that climate action is a priority for all of us and that electric vehicles play a key role in the move to clean, low-carbon transport. That's why ESB is committing €20m to upgrading and expanding the public charging network for EVs and why we've introduced pricing on a phased basis to support that investment in clean transport.
Drivers are already seeing the benefits of this investment with significant improvements in the reliability of the national network. We will continue to invest in a brighter future for drivers by supporting the change to cleaner transport using EVs."