Saurabh Kumar, Managing Director, Energy Efficiency Services (EESL)
In April, the Ministry of Power came out with guidelines on how tariffs can be fixed at the charging stations. Presently, with another category of technical requirements being finalised, we expect a comprehensive set of guidelines to be out in the next couple of months. Therefore, it is work in progress. It is important to decide who can put up these charging stations and where, because if the capacity goes beyond 50 kW, you will need transformers and other equipment.
EV is basically a load. A Tesla car, for instance, is 150 kW of load. If ten Teslas arrive at a charging station, it is the equivalent of 10.5 MW of load. Now you have to ascertain if the charging station has that kind of capacity. The world is moving towards convergence, where a grid can also provide ancillary services to EVs.
The new specifications for charging stations will facilitate the introduction of long-range cars. Presently, the cars that are there in the market have a range of 130 km. The new guidelines will enable cars of up to 250-km range, which is now the norm internationally. Also, globally, up to 75 per cent of the cars are charged either at home or in offices. As long as you are able to provide such fast-charging facilities at places where range anxiety is overcome, that would be the way to go.