First ELEN charger for electric vehicles installed in Rijeka

Croatian national energy company Hrvatska elektroprivreda (HEP) installed the first ELEN charger for electric vehicles in the city of Rijeka. It allows simultaneous charging of two cars, and the charging time is between one and four hours.

Using the ELEN charger in Rijeka is free of charge, but requires RFID identification card, which owners of electric vehicles in Croatia can obtain by sending a request to e-mail address elen@hep.hr.

ELEN is a project through which the HEP group seeks to synchronize with European Union’s energy strategy. The main idea is to use power obtained from renewable energy sources as fuel for electric vehicles.

So far HEP had installed 30 public ELEN chargers in cooperation with cities and other partners. Five of them are fast AC/DC chargers in Koprivnica, installed as part of EU project „Civitas Dyn@mo“, while one ultrafast charger (50 kW DC and 43 kW AC) with solar panels was installed in Zagreb.

According to data from the ELEN website, charging an electric vehicle to cross 500 kilometers costs HRK 42 (EUR 5,64) and the vehicle emits 24 kilos of carbon-dioxide. For comparison, diesel and petrol using cars crossing the same distance emit 80 and 94 kilos of CO2, respectively.

HEP currently has 22 electric vehicles in its car park. A system for their charging, built in the garage of the company HQ in Zagreb, includes the central charger (AC 22 kW and DC 20 kW) and six other chargers, each with 3,7 kW of power.

HEP is conducting the e-mobility project in partnership with cities, local governments and all stakeholders interested in modernizing public and private transport and contributing to the reduction of CO2 emissions and environmental preservation.