Written answers

Tuesday, 17 September 2019

Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Electric Vehicles

Photo of Martin HeydonMartin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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561. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment his plans to increase the number of e-car charging points in County Kildare and nationally; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37653/19]

Photo of Richard BrutonRichard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The All of Government Climate Action Plan, which I launched in June this year, sets out a range of actions to support the delivery of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. These actions include: - introducing a capital support that will be provided to Local Authorities for the development of on-street public chargers;

- commencing the ESB Electric Vehicle High Power Charging Infrastructure Development Project, supported by the Climate Action Fund;

- including electric vehicle fast chargers as a category eligible for support in the next call from Climate Action Fund;

- expanding the Electric Vehicle Home Charger Grant to include shared parking (e.g. in apartment blocks);

- developing and implementing planning rules and guidelines across residential and non-residential parking locations for electric vehicle charging infrastructure; and

- developing an overarching charging infrastructure strategy with a view to the supply of infrastructure to stay ahead of demand.

Last month, I announced funding to support the rollout by Local Authorities of up to 1,000 on-street public charge points for electric vehicles over the next 5 years. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland will administer a scheme where Local Authorities can apply for funding to develop on-street charging infrastructure. The detailed terms and conditions for the scheme are currently being developed and I expect the scheme to open for applications shortly.

In addition, we will introduce new regulations to require non-domestic buildings with over 20 car parking spaces to install charging facilities.

In addition, I approved funding of up to €10 million from the Climate Action Fund to support ESB ecars to develop a nationwide, state-of-the-art electric vehicle fast charging network. This project includes the installation of 90 high-power chargers each of which will be capable of charging two vehicles simultaneously, upgrading 50 existing standard chargers to fast chargers and replacing over 250 existing standard chargers 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 that will be installed as part of this project have not been finalised. However, a provisional map of the planned network, showing indicative locations, was developed by ESB ecars and has been published on my Department’s website.

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