Tata Power to install 500 EV charging stations across 5 cities in next one year

Tata Power plans to install 500 Electric Vehicle (EV) charging outlets across five cities over the next one year as the integrated power company readies the ground for the transition to battery-powered vehicles.

Tata Power Managing Director and CEO Praveer Sinha told BusinessLine that the charging stations are being installed in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad. In Hyderabad, the company is working with fleet owners.

Affordability

Till date, most EV owners have been charging from their homes or offices. “However, as the adoption goes up, there will be a requirement of slow and fast charging,” he said. The Centre recently lowered the GST rate on EVs to 5 per cent from 12 per cent and has made EVs affordable for consumers with additional income -tax deduction.

The government is looking to up the ante for EV sales as the country is far behind China, the US and Europe. Industry watchers opine that if the government target of seven million electric vehicles by 2020 is to be achieved, then the cost has to come down and the ecosystem such as battery-charging points need to be in place.

“For us, EV is beyond just electricity vending. We are putting together a mechanism to source energy in such a way that it is available in large numbers, in real time,” said Sinha.

For example, he said, if 20 or more cars come to a charging station and each car requires 15 kW for fast charge that is almost 1 MW of power (to put it in context, a a data centre uses up 1 MW). So, the question then arises, how to move this load in real time from different sub-stations. This is where Tata Power is using technology to make its networks cater to power requirements dynamically.

“Also, we plan to come up with an app that can tell the user which station has larger number of fast-charging options available, what is the cost of charging at peak, off-peak hours. Our understanding of the power business will help us in providing answers to such complex questions,” said Sinha.

Charging infrastructure

Already baby steps to set up the charging infrastructure are underway. MG Motor India and Fortum Charge & Drive India have taken the first step towards creating DC Fast Charging infrastructure (50 kW).

The car-maker announced a tie-up with Finland-based clean energy major Fortum to install the country’s first 50 kW DC fast-charging EV station, ahead of the launch of its SUV EV later this year.

Meanwhile, there is an ongoing debate on the need to adopt a single standard for charging, to reduce costs around charging infrastructure. Currently, there are three global standards, Japanese, Chinese and European, and according to reports, India is developing its own standard.

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