The choice of options for fast charging of electric cars while travelling across the Czech Republic via the Moravian region has been made enhanced with the addition of this milestone. The Electromobility of the ČEZ Group, has built two ABB fast-charging stations in the area on D35 motorway in Nemilany near Olomouc. These stations are part of the construction of fast charging stations being built thanks to a grant from the European CEF program. Through this program, the European Commission provides support for the interconnection of Europe by building charging stations along the main TENT-T road network.
As a part of the this project – “EV Fast Charging Backbone Network Central Europe” – over 40 fast charging stations allowing most electric cars to charge 80% of their battery capacity within 20-30 minutes will be built by the end of the next year. Over 10 stations have been installed as part of this project so far.
In addition to these areas, ČEZ also continues to build stations from its own resources - approximately 10 stations (fast charging and normal) have been built or will shortly be installed within this year.
“With pleasure we add these fast charging stations near Olomouc on the map of our network as an important interlink while travelling across the Moravia region and across the entire Czech Republic. These installed stations are capable of charging electric cars of all manufacturers and are compliant with the most common standards of charging. The European grant from the CEF program for the Transport field has been a great help in speeding up the construction of this type of station,” said Kamil Čermák, Chief Executive Officer of ČEZ ESCO.
“We are glad that it is the ABB charging stations that have become a part of this important charging location for electric cars, and we believe that they will continue to prove their high technical quality and reliability” said Tanja Vainio, Chief Executive Officer of ABB Czech Republic.
The ČEZ Electromobility project currently operates the largest network of public charging stations for electric cars in the Czech Republic – in addition to 40 fast-charging stations, there are also over fifty so-called normal charging stations available to drivers. For more information, please visit http://www.elektromobilita.cz/cs/mapa-dobijecich-stanic.html. When using any charging station within the entire network, users identify themselves using a unique RFID card.
At the same time the ČEZ Group offers a wide range of related services and products for companies, municipalities and regions in the field of electromobility. This includes, for example, design and installation of turn-key charging stations, electrification of car fleets, charging platforms, including IT solutions, rentals / sales of electric cars or wall boxes and charging cables. For local authorities, ČEZ offers the implementation and operation of charging stations for electric buses or design of electromobility concepts for individual towns and regions.
According to the Memorandum and the Action Plan on the Future of Automotive Industry in the Czech Republic, electromobility and digitization is one of the basic foundation stones of domestic automotive industry development. The Memorandum has recently been signed by representatives of the Czech government and by the AutoSAP Association in the presence of the ČEZ Group.
The ČEZ Group’s Electromobility operates fast charging stations supplied by ABB Czech Republic. Its standard equipment includes DC connectors compliant with the CHAdeMO and CCS charging standards, which allow charging at up to a 50kW power output. They also offer AC charging with a socket compliant with the Mennekes standard, the charging output of which can reach up to 22kW. Charging using DC connectors makes it possible to charge 80% of battery capacity in less than half an hour.
As a standard, ABB stations are connected to a platform operating on the cloud principle, which allows real-time monitoring and remote diagnostics of the equipment, including energy consumption for each station or the calculation of statistics for a particular time period. These functions are provided by the “Drive Care” and “charger Care” applications. It is the combination with the integrated predictive maintenance application running on the Microsoft Azure platform that enables the system to respond before a potential defect affects the quality of service. The reliability of charging stations is absolutely key for e-mobility.
There are currently over 1,500 electric cars registered in the Czech Republic. Just this year by the end of November, there were new registrations for 372 electric vehicles. As in other developed European countries, electric cars are becoming a common part of traffic in the Czech Republic, especially in the cities. This is reflected in all areas associated with sales and servicing of electric cars. The estimation of future development indicate that, within the next few years, annual sales of electric cars and plug-in hybrids will be in the order of thousands. The gradual removal of the biggest barriers (limited choice of electric cars, their high price, low density of charging infrastructure and low customer experience) combined with supportive measures (free entry into city centres, parking zones, permission to drive in lanes dedicated to public transport, etc.) should lead to a quick increase to 20% of the total quantity of passenger and light utility vehicles sold in the Czech Republic.