Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Under the first call for applications from the climate action fund, funding of €10 million is being provided to the ESB to develop a nationwide, state-of-the-art electric vehicle charging network. The ESB is matching that with €10 million in funding. The project includes the installation of 140 fast chargers and consists of 90 150 kW chargers, each capable of charging two vehicles simultaneously. They will be able to charge vehicles fully in six minutes, so they are very powerful. Another 50 existing standard chargers will be upgraded to 50 kW chargers. The project will also involve replacing more than 500 existing standard charge points with next-generation high reliability models.

This is a multi-annual project and is expected to be fully completed by 2022. The locations of the chargers installed as part of this project have not been finalised. However, a provisional map of the planned network, showing indicative locations, was developed by the ESB and has been published on my Department’s website. The location of the planned installations will, once finalised, be published by the ESB.

An allocation of €36 million has been provided for electric vehicle uptake in 2020. This includes €2 million in funding to support local authorities in the roll-out of on-street public charge points for electric vehicles. This can support the installation of up to 400 on-street chargers in 2020. All local authorities can now apply for funding to the Sustainable Energy Authority Ireland, SEAI, in respect of that initiative. In addition, in the first quarter of 2020, we will develop a charging infrastructure strategy and we will also carry out an updated needs analysis for fast chargers based on having 75,000 electric vehicles by 2022. Each year, there will be additional inclusions, meaning there will be some 1,200 local chargers over time.

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