Brian Stanley
Ceist:347. Deputy Brian Stanley asked the Minister for Transport the plans that his Department has to increase the number of electric vehicle charging points in counties Laois and Offaly. [30937/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraTuesday, 14 June 2022
Ceisteanna (347)
Freagraí scríofa
The Government is fully committed to supporting a significant expansion and modernisation of the electric vehicle charging network over the coming years. A draft national charging infrastructure strategy for the development of EV charging infrastructure, covering the crucial period out to 2025 was published for consultation in March. The draft strategy sets out the government’s ambition regarding the delivery of a public EV charging network to support up to 194,000 electric cars and vans by the middle of the decade. Responses and submissions received as part of the consultation are currently being considered in the development of the final Strategy for publication.
The Strategy acknowledges the need for sufficient provision of fast or top-up charging at strategic locations such as along motorways, to enable longer EV journeys and alleviate lingering public concerns such as range anxiety.
There is also a need for a seamless public charging network that will provide for situations or instances where home charging is not possible such as on-street and residential charging, destination charging, and workplace charging.
Preparations are underway to establish Zero Emission Vehicles Ireland. This Office will play an important role in our transition to zero emission vehicles. It will co-ordinate measures to support the uptake of EVs and the rollout of charge point infrastructure including the development of a number of new infrastructure schemes.
€10 million was committed from the Climate Action Fund to support ESB investment in the charging network and this has leveraged a further €10 million investment from ESB, with the infrastructure to be in place by the end of 2022. This intervention alone will result in:
- 90 additional high power chargers, each capable of charging two vehicles - Seventeen high-power chargers distributed across 14 multi-vehicle hubs have been delivered as part of the programme to date.
- 52 additional fast chargers, which may replace existing standard chargers - This work is completed at 36 locations.
- 264 replacement standard chargers with more modern technology and with each consisting of two charge points - This work is substantially complete. 258 of the chargers have now been successfully replaced.
Further details on the progression of this project can be found at esb.ie/ecars/our-network/network-upgrades.
My Department continues to engage directly with stakeholders to ensure that a sufficient number of chargers, as well as a sufficient spread of charger types, will be in place to meet demand as we move towards our 2030 target of almost1 million EVs on the road.