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The consortium of E.ON, Eldrive, and ZSE has secured financing for the installation of 1,400 chargers for electric cars and commercial vehicles in 13 European Union countries including Bulgaria and Romania.
E.ON, one of Europe’s largest power utilities, and its subsidiary, Slovakia-based Západoslovenská Energetika (ZSE), have partnered with Eldrive, a company registered in Austria and owned by Bulgarian investors, to implement the Drive-E project.
It is one of 39 innovative projects selected by the European Union for the development of alternative fuel infrastructure.
The consortium has received EUR 45 million in EU funding to expand charging infrastructure for electric cars and commercial vehicles in Europe, according to the companies.
The planned charging points for cars and light and heavy commercial vehicles will be located at more than 250 sites
It will install a total of 1,400 new public charging points by the end of 2027. They include 430 units for heavy commercial vehicles, each with a capacity of 350 kW or more.
The planned charging points for cars and light and heavy commercial vehicles will be located at more than 250 sites in Germany, Austria, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia.
Some sites will be specifically designed for truck charging and others will be mixed environments for trucks and cars. Another focus of the project is to complement and extend the existing network for light commercial vehicles in areas where there are gaps in the network.
E.ON operates 6,000 and Eldrive has 1,200 public EV chargers
E.ON Drive operates more than 6,000 public EV charging points in Europe together with 10,000 charge units in the private and business sectors.
Of note, Eldrive Holding announced three weeks ago that it has secured a EUR 40 million loan for the deployment of 8,472 electric vehicle charging stations in Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Romania. The company operates 1,200 chargers in the three countries.
The Drive-E project is co-funded by the EU under the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Facility (AFIF) II. AFIF is a key driver of the EU’s ambitious push to expand charging infrastructure across its trans-European transport network, thus making freight and passenger transport in Europe more efficient and sustainable.
The second phase of AFIF (2024-2025) was launched in February 2024 with a total budget of EUR 1 billion.
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