The Irish government has announced that it will oversee the installation of 17 new high-speed electric car charging hubs across Ireland, with the new locations due to be operational by the end of 2025.
What’s the official word?
Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan has said that “EVs are an important part of our journey to reducing emissions in the transport sector. They are cleaner, better cars but we want to provide extra certainty to people either using an EV now or thinking about one into the future. Putting in place these banks of high-powered recharging points is an important first step in our commitment to people and to a more sustainable transport system.
“We will follow it up with many other schemes to ensure people know that they can charge their cars easily. This will complement our other commitments such as the EV purchase grant scheme, which will remain unchanged again next year, our grants for home chargers and the continued VRT reduction for EVs. Add this to the greater choice and price competitiveness on the market, we hope more and more people will be encouraged to choose electric.”
Where will these hubs be located?
Referring to the hubs as ‘pools’ the Department for Transport says that they will include fast and ultra-fast charging points, and the total combined power output of all the points will be in the region of 24 megawatts. The plan is that each hub will be spaced out - with an average of seven charging points at each one - at 45km intervals along major roads and motorways. The charging hubs won’t be built and operated by the government - tenders will be put out to private operators, who will be given grants and funding from government coffers.
The funds will come from Zero Emission Vehicles Ireland (ZEVI) under the first EV Charging Infrastructure LDV (Light Duty Vehicle) En-Route Grant Scheme and led by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII). The grant scheme was launched in February this year and aims to accelerate the development of EV recharging infrastructure across Ireland's road network by incentivising private sector involvement.
This isn’t the first time we’ve been promised an improvement...
Peter Walsh, CEO of TII, said: “Our collaboration with ZEVI and private businesses underscores the importance of public-private partnerships in advancing EV recharging infrastructure. These recharging points will not only benefit individual drivers but also contribute to Ireland’s overall environmental objectives.”
However, there does seem to a tacit admission that previous attempts at this have failed. The Department has noted that: “There were no successful applicants for additional high-power recharging pools to supplement the existing recharging pool at Cashel, on the M8 corridor between Junction 3 Ballacolla and Dunkettle, a route also served by other existing recharging pools.”
This was, according to the Department, because sufficient funding for those hubs was not, at the time, available from the LDV scheme. However, there is confidence in the Department that extra support, via the LDV scheme, will be enough to get private operators to sign on for these new charging hubs.