EV Charging To Be Made Available At Railway Stations In India

The Indian government is progressively looking to expand and strengthen the support infrastructure for electric vehicles with an intent to popularize and promote clean transportation.

Indian Railways will set up charging stations at the parking lots of railways stations to help users charge their vehicles. According to media reports, this pilot project will be initiated in the capital city of New Delhi, which is expected to see a surge in electric vehicles very soon.  

Power distribution company BSES will set up DC charging stations at two railway stations in New Delhi. These charging stations will support 10 vehicles simultaneously and would be able to charge a vehicle in 40 minutes — compared to AC chargers which can take up to 6 hours.

The total investment on setting up the charging infrastructure is expected to be around $23,000. Indian Railways will provide infrastructure to BSES and may get to earn some revenue as well. BSES will charge vehicle owners around ¢8/kWh as charging tariff, as approved by the state regulator.

If this experiment reaps desirable results, the model can be replicated throughout the country. Indian Railways has more than 7,000 stations across the country. Indian Railways is also planning to set up 5 gigawatts of solar power capacity, including at least 3 gigawatts of utility-scale capacity on surplus land. These solar power projects may power the charging stations, creating an additional source of revenue for the Railways.

New Delhi is expected to see a surge in electric cars over the next few months as automakers start the delivery of nearly 10,000 sedans against the tender floated by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL). Automakers Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Motors are believed to have supplied 500 electric sedans while EESL will float a tender for 9,500 additional sedans. All these cars are expected to be used by government offices located in the capital.