Rs 16,000 cr capex required to meet India’s growing public charging demand for EVs by 2030: FICCI EV Public Charging Report

Dec 16, 2024

40 cities out of 700+ cities and 20 highways could be prioritized for scaling up public charging infrastructure

 

Minimum 8-10% utilization critical for economic viability of public charging station

 

 

NEW DELHI, 16 December 2024: According to the ‘FICCI EV Public Charging Infrastructure Roadmap 2030’ report, to achieve the mission of over 30 per cent electrification by 2030, Rs 16,000 crore in capex would be required to meet India’s public charging demand by 2030. The report further suggests that the top 40 cities out of the 700 plus cities analyzed on the basis of their EV sales from 2015 to 2023-24 and 20 highway stretches could be prioritized for scaling up public charging infrastructure. These top 40 cities are expected to have higher EV penetration in the next 3-5 years given the current EV adoption rate, and favorable state policies. And 20 highways stretch connecting these 40 priority cities contribute to 50 per cent of the vehicular traffic.

 

According to the report, current financial viability for public charging stations in India remains low at less than 2 per cent utilization rates and to achieve profitability and scalability, we need to aim for a 8-10 per cent utilization by 2030. Citing a case study, the report highlighted that Germany has created an economically viable public charging network with 5-10 per cent utilization rates, and more than 16 per cent utilization rates at the highways. This may require players to collaborate with local authorities for hyper-granular planning to identify hot spots for setting up public charging stations.

 

FICCI report also highlights key challenges that need to be addressed to scale up charging infrastructure, ranging from financial constraints e.g., high infrastructure costs & low utilization rates to operational constraints e.g., lack of uninterrupted power supply and lack of standardized protocols to enable interoperability. For instance, the current cost structure of electricity tariffs with fixed charges regardless of energy consumption combined with low utilization at public charging stations is making it challenging to achieve break even. States like UP, Delhi and Gujarat have no/low fixed tariffs but there are other states where fixed tariffs are high, thereby challenging the viability. The report calls for actions across key stakeholders including policy makers, industry players and government bodies to enable India’s transition towards clean energy and sustainability. The report also emphasized that Ministry of Power’s recent guidelines should be followed across states to have a uniform charging framework. The report also urged the states to set up state level cells with representatives from industry stakeholders, state and central authorities to enable and monitor charging infrastructure roadmap implementation.