With the increasing number of electric vehicles on the road, businesses with car parks are attracting a loyal customer base by offering electric car charging stations inside their car parks. But how much does an electric car charging stations cost?
Currently, governments the world over are incentivising and regulating the shift towards electric cars as part of a global drive to reduce CO2 emissions. Naturally, there cannot be electric cars without electric car chargers, and the costs associated with installing this technology is a hot topic for businesses with customer or staff parking.
Let’s consider this information. The UK has this year doubled its funding for the On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme to £10 million, whilst Germany aims to have one million charging stations across the country by 2030, and to make it possible, the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure has introduced an incentive programme to encourage the roll-out of public charging stations. Similarly, France has announced that it will have 100,000 publicly available EV charging points by 2021, which it hopes will help with promoting the sale of electric vehicles. Make no mistake, this is an evolution on an unprecedented scale, and one which will eventually penetrate all geographical borders.
Costs
Installing a commercial electric car charging station for public use will cost approximately £1,000-£1,500 plus VAT (€1118-€1675), depending on the communications your parking facility requires, the charger model you select, the number of chargers and any installation specifics such as cabling, foundations and fixings.
Authorities are suggesting that in smaller car parks (up to 30 spaces) two electric car charging stations should be available at this time, but for larger parking facilities of more than 120 spaces, there should be one EV station for every 25 spaces.
Parking SPD
Of course, this will increase as countries move closer to withdrawing all internal combustion engine cars (ICE cars) from their roads.
Payback
Typically speaking, a gross annual profit of around £200 is achievable when “selling” electricity at a profit of 4p per kWh through a charging station serving just one customer per day, for 250 days of the year using 25kWh per charge. You can expect to pay approximately £50 per year, per charger for data fees and maintenance.
Payback can be achieved in as little as three years for busy car parks, and advertising your electric car charging facilities is key to encouraging EV owners to use your car parking and your wider facilities. Remember, there are a number of popular websites and apps used by EV drivers to locate charging points, so registering your location is key to achieve a faster ROI. Even for lesser used chargers, a payback period of six years is reasonable to assume.
Funding Models
How you fund your electric car charging stations depends on a range of variables including available CAPEX, and any wider revenue opportunities that offering such facilities may bring, such as increasing footfall in shopping centres or leisure facilities.
That said, there are four widely accepted funding models used across Europe and they have all proven successful. They are:
- Profit generating: the usage fee covers costs and generates a profit too.
- Cost recovery: the usage fee covers just the cost of your charge points.
- Loss leader: EV charging is offered free to attract customers.
- Fully funded: a network operator funds the installation of your charging stations, and imposes conditions over their operation.
