Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 5 November 2019
855. Deputy Niamh Smyth asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the reason there are no electric vehicle fast charging points in County Cavan; if matters raised by a person (details supplied) will be reviewed; if consideration will be given to same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44678/19]
Amharc ar fhreagra881. Deputy Anne Rabbitte asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the number of electric vehicle charging points installed in each county in each of the years 2016 to 2018 and to date in 2019, in tabular form; the number of planned installations in each county; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45081/19]
Amharc ar fhreagraI propose to take Questions Nos. 855 and 881 together.
The Climate Action Plan sets out a range of actions to support the delivery of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. These actions include developing the infrastructure to stay sufficiently ahead of demand.
There are currently over 650 standard public charge points and 96 fast chargers, which are mainly on national routes, in Ireland. Most of this infrastructure was installed up to 2016 by the ESB as part of its eCars programme with a limited number of charge points installed since. My Department does not have a detailed breakdown by county and year of the charge point installations. However, the public charge points currently provided by ESB eCars are shown along with the status of each charger on their online map.
I am aware that there is currently no fast charger in County Cavan. I also understand that there is a need for greater numbers of charge points, and in particular fast chargers, as the number of electric vehicles increase. Under the first call for applications from the Climate Action Fund, I approved funding of up to €10 million will support ESB eCars to develop a nationwide, state-of-the-art electric vehicle fast charging network, with ESB eCars also investing €10 million. This project includes the installation of 140 fast chargers consisting of 90 150kW chargers (each of which will be capable of charging two vehicles simultaneously) and upgrading 50 existing standard chargers to 50kW chargers The project will also involve replacing over 500 existing standard charge points with next generation high reliability models.
This is a multi-annual project and is expected to be fully completed by 2022. The locations of the chargers that will be installed as part of this project have not been finalised. However, a provisional map of the planned network, showing indicative locations, was developed by ESB eCars and has been published on my Department’s website.
I expect approximately half of the 140 new fast chargers to be installed by the end of 2020 bringing the total to over 160 fast chargers. This is expected to further increase to over 200 by the end of 2021 and over 230 by the end of 2022.
In addition, Budget 2020 provided €2 million in funding for a new SEAI support scheme for public charge points. This scheme provides funding to Local Authorities who install public charge points. A grant of up to €5,000 per charge point is provided with sufficient funding available to support the installation of up to 400 charge points next year.
