Crowd Charging — New Pilot Project In Denmark

January 12, 20187 years ago Jesper Berggreen 0 Comments

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The energy company E.ON has just launched a new pilot project in Denmark to try to utilize home chargers installed around the country at EV owners’ homes. E.ON writes in an email to its EV charge customers:

“Crowd Charging is a pilot project to explore the possibilities and potential of making end users’ private charging boxes publicly available. This has great potential for expanding the number of public charging points, making it even more attractive to drive electric cars. And if there are more EV owners, it will be even easier to set up both public and private chargers.”

I must applaud E.ON. Since it entered the Danish market, it has stubbornly worked to promote the transition to electric mobility in the country. I have had the pleasure of driving EVs under its so called EV-Ambassador project, with significant discounts on leases. So, to me, this project is very much E.ON’s style. Kudos to them.

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E.ON has more than 1,300 charge points in the country, and it has many 50 kW DC fast chargers along the motorways. It works together with the only other supplier of charge points in the country, Clever, and the network works seamlessly. Which is remarkable since the number of EVs on the roads in Denmark has completely stagnated since the government applied taxes on EVs. In reality, they have no viable market in electric mobility.

E.ON has its origin in Germany and, truth be said, it has burnt a lot of coal over the years, but it just might take this green energy transition seriously. At least the Nordic operation has a clear vision (E.ON Denmark is 100% owned by E.ON Sweden AB):

“E.ON takes part in the green transformation and focuses on the production of energy from renewable energy sources, energy networks and energy efficient customer solutions. E.ON’s investments and activities constitute all building blocks for the future energy system and the transformation that is gradually taking place in the energy market in the transition from fossil to renewable and CO2 neutral energy sources. Today, more than 93% of the energy E.ON produces in the Nordic region originate from renewable and climate-friendly energy sources.”

OK, I really hope this Crowd Charge pilot project works out — it is a pretty neat idea — but I am afraid there are not enough customers. E.ON is known for lobbying a great deal in favor of EVs, and projects like this do indeed show that it means business. The question is, will the government eventually promote EVs too? Or will it simply take a new government to get this party going?

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