D he operator of charging stations for electric cars will not make money for a long time. For the suppliers of electricity grids, however, attracts a billion market. Up to € 11 billion in investment is needed by 2030 to prepare the power grid for the demands. If the network were to remain as it is then it would not be powerful enough to increase the number of electric cars. These are the results of a study commissioned by ABB by the Munich professor Horst Wildemann and his consulting firm TCW.
Business correspondent Rhein-Neckar-Saar based in Ludwigshafen.
For Wildemann, a comprehensive availability of charging stations is the decisive factor in increasing the number of electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles currently registered in Germany. He estimates that by 2030 there will be an extremely high market potential for charging stations. Just 2.2 million could be in public places such as motorway service areas, shopping malls or parking lots. Even more, namely 2.5 million, he expects at private sites, ie homes, housing estates and businesses. For comparison: today there are hardly 5000 publicly available charging stations.
How can charging stations become more profitable?
According to the study, the main beneficiaries of the upgrade are the network suppliers. For the operators of charging stations, the vast majority of businesses are far from paying off. In order for a charging station to pay for itself within three years, the number of electric cars would have to increase more than tenfold even if the number of charge points remains the same, it is said. But even this scenario is unrealistic, after all, the number of charging point so increase to set a buying incentive.
His conclusion: federal and state subsidies are “currently and in the near future irreplaceable, in order to promote the expansion of the charging infrastructure.” Only if economies of scale and the investment costs were reduced could charging companies create viable business models. Today, operators mostly use charging stations as a means of customer loyalty or marketing, such as retailers who provide their customers with a free charging station for the duration of their shopping. By March 2018, the state has promoted, according to Wildemann “only” nearly 8000 normal load points and 1500 fast charging points. Public funding is currently heavily focused on the cars. 600 million euros are available for purchase premiums, but citizens seem to take little notice of these incentives.
By 2020: 15,000 public charging stations
Therefore, one should redirect the funds towards charging stations, proposes the responsible Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (Bafa): “The support could be used by craftsmen, hotels or in residential complexes,” according to the idea of Bafa President Andreas Obersteller.
The existing support program for charging infrastructure will provide 300 million euros to support the construction of 15,000 publicly accessible charging stations by 2020. The condition is that the electricity comes from renewable energy sources.
From this pot, for example, Deutsche Telekom wants to get funding, which declaredly wants to become one of the largest providers of charging stations by converting part of their distribution boards to charging stations. Several hundred of them could become fast-charging stations. New in the business is Ionity, an association of the automakers BMW, Daimler, VW and Ford, with the plan to build by 2020 on European transport axes 400 fast charging stations. ENBW sees itself as the market leader in the business. By 2020, the electricity company wants to build 1,000 fast charging stations.