Germany’s Federal Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure Andreas Scheuer announced the founding of a new national control enter for charging infrastructure. The mission of the National Control Center is to ensure the swift and coordinated establishment of nationwide charging options in Germany. The automotive industry and the energy industry have promised to actively support the control center, Minister Scheuer said.
Charging must be as uncomplicated and natural as with a cell phone. We also lay down uniform rules for the activation of the charging point and the payment. Our first goal is 1,000 quick charging locations.
—Andreas Scheuer
NOW GmbH has been commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) to set up and operate the national control center for charging infrastructure.
The National Control Center for Charging Infrastructure is located at NOW GmbH in the long term, which has so far coordinated and controlled the BMVI’s Charging Infrastructure funding guideline.
The control center will be expanded in the coming months to ensure that it is fully operational. Core tasks of the control center are the calculation of needs; planning and coordinated development of a nationwide fast-charging network; coordination of federal and state activities; and support of the municipalities in the planning and implementation of the charging infrastructure.
The automotive industry and the energy industry are providing the necessary information for the fitting of the charging infrastructure. This includes the expected new registrations, future battery sizes, the charging capacity of the BEVs and PHEVs and their relationship to each other.
The focus is on expanding a network for ultra-fast charging in Germany: the first goal is to set up 1,000 new quick-charging locations that have a sufficient number of charging points per location and can be expanded quickly.
With TOOL, NOW GmbH has already developed a planning tool on behalf of the BMVI with which the Germany-wide charging infrastructure for cars and commercial vehicles can be planned by 2030 and the further need for expansion can be calculated. The TOOL application shows the future need for additional charging points and includes traffic flows, socio-economic data and existing infrastructures.
The expansion of the charging infrastructure and the determination of suitable areas needs to take place in close cooperation between the federal government, the states and the municipalities, Scheuer said. In addition, new financing instruments are being developed that ensure rapid, reliable and user-friendly expansion.
Currently, the construction and operation of charging infrastructure is still not very profitable and there are hardly any viable business models. In addition to locations that will be economical in the near future due to their favorable location, there are locations that will also be visited very little in the future. However, these are of the utmost importance for a nationwide network and for user acceptance. We will tender larger lots in which we bundle these location types.
For this reason, the federal government will assume start-up financing with a new financing model. This is how we ensure planning security for the operators of the charging infrastructure.
In this context, we will also determine when the charging stations must be installed and how registration and payment should take place. We will also work towards standardizing prices and demanding continuous, reliable operation. This is how we ensure planning security for users and also for manufacturers of electric vehicles.
—Andreas Scheuer
Font: Green Car Congress
