Delhi: 100 e-charging stations in 3 months, will cover rural, densely populated areas too

To push the public towards adopting e-vehicles, the Delhi government has kept the charging price very low at Rs 2 per unit.

Jain also announced that tenders for installation of the 100 stations have been awarded: “12 bidders came forward for the tender and the winning bid was at the rate of minus Rs 3.60/unit. This means instead of charging users for the service, they will be incentivised. It is noteworthy that charging stations in Delhi up to a load of 22kW will run at a rate of Rs 2 per unit. Usually, cities charge upwards of Rs 10 per unit for the same and even go as high as Rs 15 per unit. Agreements for the charging stations will be finalised by April 8 and they will be operational by June 27.”

As per officials, this was also the largest tender of its kind in India. “The government for the first time aggregated 100 land parcels across different agencies to obtain lowest bid (service charge) for end users. This allowed good spatial planning too. EV charging stations don’t earn money in initial years. To ensure healthy competition, the government went for a PPP model. We offered land at concessional rates and took care of upstream electrical infrastructure. Bidders will have to only set up charging station infrastructure and run them for five years,” said Jasmine Shah, DDC vice-chairman and chairperson of the government’s Charging Infrastructure Working Group.

He also added that the tender “solved evolving market requirements by mandating chargers for only 30% of the capacity and keeping the choice of the rest flexible”.

Of the 100 stations, 71 will come up in parking lots and premises of Delhi Metro stations and the remaining at bus stops and depots, railway stations, and markets. With the installation of 500 charging points, Delhi will have about 900 such points. The city currently has 180 stations and 379 charging points, the latter mostly located in New Delhi Municipal Council areas.

“Our aim was to provide an EV charging station within a 3 km range anywhere in the city. Currently, these are only available in posh localities in New Delhi and Central Delhi. Now, we are also targeting under-served areas including Outer Delhi,” said Shah.

He added, “Rs 2 will be charged per unit and the overall cost for charging a vehicle is based upon the kilowatt of the battery. For example, two-wheelers have a 3kw battery, so it will cost Rs 6 to charge it.”