Delhi govt to release plan to set up 200 EV public charging, battery swapping stations

All government agencies in Delhi including the three Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCDs), New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Public Works Department (PWD), Transport department, Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), DSIIDC, etc, will carry out a comprehensive planning exercise in the next two weeks to identify concessional locations within their jurisdictions for the purpose of setting up public charging stations.

According to an official release, through this exercise, the Delhi government will roll out a coordinated strategy to setup 200 public charging and battery swapping stations at prominent locations in the city.

This was among the key decisions taken at the first meeting of the Charging Infrastructure Working Group of Delhi Government that met today under the Chairmanship of Jasmine Shah, Vice-Chairperson, Dialogue, and Development Commission of Delhi.

The Delhi EV Policy 2020 which was notified in last month by the Transport Department lays special emphasis on the accelerated rollout of public charging infrastructure as a key enabler in the rapid adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in Delhi. Given the multiplicity of agencies in Delhi, the task of devising and implementing a coordinated strategy for setting up charging infrastructure in Delhi has been entrusted to the Charging Infrastructure Working Group. Besides Vice-Chairperson (DDC), the meeting was attended by the Transport Commissioner, Secretary NDMC, Additional Commissioners of the three MCDs, CEOs of Discoms, and senior representatives of the Power Department, DMRC, Delhi Transco Ltd., and EESL.

"Delhi government will soon be rolling out financial incentives promised under the EV policy. By creating a Charging Infrastructure Working Group, the 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. This is critical to realizing CM Arvind Kejriwal's vision of making Delhi the EV capital of India and among the top cities globally in terms of EV penetration", said Jasmine Shah.

At today's meeting, the three Discoms, EESL, DMRC, Delhi Transco Ltd., NDMC, East MCD, and North MCD gave a detailed presentation of their proposals for rapidly augmenting the public charging infrastructure as well as private charging infrastructure in the city.

It was agreed at the meeting that given the emphasis of the Delhi EV Policy on mass adoption of EVs in the two-wheeler and three-wheeler vehicle 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. Additionally, developing a wide network of battery swapping stations was also identified as a key priority.

In addition to public charging stations, establishing charging facilities in restricted public spaces such as malls, office complexes, group housing societies, hotels, education institutions, hospitals etc. was also identified as a priority at the meeting.

Given these premises have high capacity commercial connections, it was discussed that 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. Dialogue and Development Commission and Delhi Transco Ltd. were entrusted with the role of working out a special scheme on the lines of the RESCO model under the rooftop solar scheme to empanel energy operators at the city level who could then be engaged by the owners of these premises to invest, install and maintain charging points for public use within these facilities, according to the release.

( With inputs from ANI )