Delhi govt's new EV policy: A key challenge to identify concessional land for charging stations
New Delhi: With the Delhi government all set to roll out its subsidy schemes under the new electric vehicle policy, the Charging Infrastructure Working Group has been informed by discoms and the Energy Efficiency Services Limited that a major constraint will be the availability of land for charging stations at concessional rates.
As a result, the working group has decided to rope in other agencies to identify concessional land at ideal locations within their respective jurisdictions. In a statement, the working group said all three municipal corporations, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), Delhi Development Authority (DDA), PWD, Transport Department and various other agencies will be involved in the process. Once this mapping exercise to identify ideal locations is completed, the Delhi Transco. Ltd, which is the state nodal agency for setting up charging infrastructure, will implement a coordinated plan for setting up of 200 charging stations with subsidy support from the Delhi government.
The Charging Infrastructure Working Group of the Delhi Government conducted a meeting which was chaired by the Vice-Chairperson of Dialogue and Development Commission (DDC), Jasmine Shah and the nitty-gritty details of the exercise were discussed.
"Delhi government will soon be rolling out financial incentives promised under the EV policy. By creating a Charging Infrastructure Working Group, Delhi government has brought on board all the different agencies and DISCOMs of Delhi to initiate work on the accelerated rollout of charging infrastructure in a collaborative manner," Shah said.
At the meeting, an emphasis was laid on the mass adoption of electric vehicles in the two-wheeler and three-wheeler segments, the charging infrastructure should focus primarily on setting up a large number of slow-charging stations consisting of AC-001 charging points (3.3 kW each) and a limited number of DC-001 fast chargers (15 kW each), instead of setting up a few expensive fast-charging stations that cater primarily for premium four-wheelers. Meanwhile developing a wide network of battery swapping stations was also identified as a key priority, a statement issued by DDC stated. Establishing charging facilities in restricted public spaces such as malls, office complexes, group housing societies, hotels, education institutions, hospitals was also identified as a
priority. Given these premises have high capacity commercial connections, setting up of a large number of slow-charging points at these facilities would be inexpensive and a quick way of setting up thousands of additional charging points in the city and reducing range anxiety, the statement added.
