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Setting up charging stations for electric vehicles at petrol pumps may not be a sustainable model due to space constraints and charging time, said a senior official of Indian Oil Corporation.
“To start with, we will be ready for setting up charging stations though the outlets have to build some electrical works for that. However, will that be a model for charging EVs? Generally, people would want to charge when idling the vehicle and the ideal place to charge is not fuel outlets,” P Jayadevan, Executive Director – Tamil Nadu & Puducherry, Indian Oil Corporation, said while outlining various expansion works of the company in the State.
He explained that given the space constraints in the petrol pumps, it will be not a viable option. Today, fast chargers itself may take about 45 minutes. Slow chargers will take 3-3.5 hours.
“We have been trying this model on a pilot basis in Hyderabad, Nagpur and New Delhi. In a symbolic way, fuel outlets can have charging stations. But that is not a solution. Parking areas would be the ideal places. This model of setting up charging stations is not considered even in other countries that are adopting EVs,” he added.
Jayadevan said the IOC will take up the preparatory works from January in order to sell BS-VI at its fuel outlets from April 1 next year.
As India moves from BS-IV grade fuels to BS-VI grade fuels directly from next April, Indian Oil Corporation’s refineries across the country have been upgrading their technologies and processes to supply BS-VI-compliant fuels from next year. The company has spent about ₹18,000 crore to upgrade and supply the new grade of fuel.
“As committed, we would be providing the BS-VI fuel from April 1. We may not be able to give it early. Because, there are some logistics issues and we need to change entire fuel and bring in new fuel,” he said.
“We may start the changeover the process some time during January next year as it would take a couple of months to complete the process. There may not be any substantial cost increase for BS-VI fuel,” he added.
At 10 parts per million (PPM), the sulphur content in BS-VI will be substantially lower than that of BS-IV fuel which has a sulphur content of 50 PPM. BS-VI fuel would help to reduce particulate emissions as the sulphur content in the fuel leads to fine particulate emissions.
Vasudevan highlighted IOC’s investment plans involving more than ₹12,600 crore for various expansion programmes across areas over the short-long term period.
Expansion plans
Its expansion plans include augmentation of storage capacity at bottling plants, conversion of booster station to a full-fledged terminal, setting up of a new terminal, a proposal for own jetty at Kamarajar Port, the establishment of 1,250 km pipeline, setting up a pipeline to supply piped natural gas and CNG stations, among others.
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