Mar 08 2024, 09:12
India is installing solar powered EV charging stations. Will it work?
In February, electric vehicle (EV) ride-sharing platform BluSmart announced a deal with Tata Power to recharge its electric cabs using solar energy, ensuring no fossil fuels are used in their operation. The deal shows a viable path for cleaner and cheaper mobility options.
"This makes us a 100% emissions-free company," says Tushar Garg, Co-founder & CEO, BluSmart Charge. "We will be sourcing 30 megawatts (MW) this year from a plant in Bikaner, Rajasthan, which will be used to operate our entire fleet in Delhi-NCR and Bangalore."
This concept of solar-power EV charging stations is fairly new. As the name suggests, it involves using solar panels instead of fossil-fuel based energy to generate electricity which is used to recharge EVs. There are many ways to implement this: for example, some companies use batteries to store the power, others generate electricity and feed it into the grid.
These developments encourage the hope that public mobility, at least, can be powered by environmentally friendly sources more easily. Such installations lend support to Transparency Market Research's estimate that the global market size for solar-powered EV charging stations was $204.6 million in 2022 and would reach $370.4 million by 2031. Global firms like Tesla (US), Fastened (Netherlands), iSun (US) and Empower Solar (US) have also developed solar EV charging stations and deployed these in their areas of operations. Experts estimate that as people start using more electric vehicles, renewable energy-powered charging stations would become common.
According to a report by KPMG, India is expected to have 102 million EVs by 2030, which means there will be a need for 2.9 million public charging stations. The year 2023 saw a 50% increase in EV sales, says CareEdge. According to the Ministry of Power, there were 12,146 public EV charging stations in the country as on February 2, 2024. These numbers indicate the need for alternative sources of energy to charge EVs in a clear way.
But the cost of setting up a solar EV charging station is generally higher than that of setting up a conventional charging station. BatX's Singh justifies the cost by stating the durability of the system. He says solar panels have a lifespan of 25 years and the battery the company is using will last for 4-5 years. For BatX, second-life batteries cost 50% lower than new batteries, thus reducing the production costs.
source:et
Mar 08 2024, 09:16