EVs in Greece: By the end of the year, 500 million euros in tenders for the installation of chargers

The Ministry of Environment and Energy has set a clear timetable for the start of the tenders that the country’s municipalities must “run” for the installation of electric vehicle charging points. In particular, according to a regulation included in the multi-bill being discussed these days in Parliament, the municipalities must proceed with the procedures until December 31, 2023.

In fact, in the case of open tenders for granting the right to develop, manage and operate publicly accessible recharging points for electric vehicles, it is mandatory for municipalities to use specific documents, which will be prepared by the Autonomous Department of Electric Mobility of the Ministry of the Interior and will be approved by joint ministerial decision , so that there are no differences from municipality to municipality. However, the regulation also leaves awindow open as it provides that the deadline for the start of the tenders can be extended by a joint decision of the Ministers of Environment and Energy and Interior.

The 11,000 chargers

The aim is to supply and install approximately 11,000 publicly accessible charging points in strategic points in urban and peri-urban areas, an investment that will exceed 500 million euros in total. The points were located from the 328 Electric Vehicle Charging Plans (EVPs) drawn up by the municipalities.

“I charge everywhere”

At the same time, the invitation of the program “Charging everywhere”, with a budget of 120 million euros, which is also a milestone of the Recovery Fund for the first quarter of 2023, is expected, in order to strengthen private entities (such as supermarkets, gas stations, shopping centers, etc. .a.) for the installation of approximately 8,000 publicly accessible fast and ultra-fast charging points for electric vehicles. From a study prepared on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior, it was calculated that more than 13,000 public charging points will be required by 2025 and a total of 100,000 by 2030, with the necessary investments exceeding 700 million euros.

The number of chargers on the public road network is a critical parameter for the acquisition of electric vehicles by citizens. As for the high cost of their acquisition, it is currently limited through the “Move Electrically” programs for cars and “Green Taxis”.

“I move electrically”

About 12,500 applications have been submitted to “Move electrically II“, with a budget of 50 million euros, most of them from private individuals. Also, the majority of applications concern two-wheelers and three-wheelers and about 25% for passenger cars. In the first cycle of the “Move Electric” action, whose deadline for submitting applications was 31/12/2021, the applications that had been submitted were approximately 19,000 (9% concern cars, 22% two-wheelers and three-wheelers, 69% bicycles).

There is also interest in taxis as only in the first month since the start of the program, at the beginning of the year, 35 applications were submitted for the replacement of polluting vehicles. The action, with a total budget of 40 million euros, aims to replace approximately 2,000 old and polluting taxis with EURO 5 technology or earlier with new, purely electric vehicles with mandatory withdrawal and destruction of the old vehicle.

Electric vehicles

Regarding the penetration of electric vehicles in the Greek market in 2022, 8,337 electric cars were registered, when in 2019 only 480 were registered. Thus, the percentage of electric cars increased from 0.4% to almost 8%. Today in Greece there are around 17,000 electric vehicles and 2,300 chargers installed, while two years ago there were less than 1,000 vehicles and not even 100 chargers.

However, alongside the promotion of electrification, the carrying capacity of the electrical network should also be examined, as due to problems in the network it is not always possible to install chargers, especially fast chargers