India’s growing public charging infra needs ₹16,000 crore capex by 2030 says FICCI report 

India’s growing dewing demand for public charging infrastructure for Electric Vehicles (EVs) would require a capex of Rs 16,000 crore to achieve 30% electrification by 2030, Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) said in a report.

As per the report ‘FICCI EV Public Charging Infrastructure Roadmap 2030’ top 40 cities and 20 highway stretches must be given priority in the public charging strategy. 

“These top 40 cities are expected to have higher EV penetration in the next 3-5 years given the current EV adoption rate, and favorable state policies. And 20 highways stretch connecting these 40 priority cities contribute to 50 per cent of the vehicular traffic,” the industry chamber said in the report.

According to the report, currently the utilisation rate at public charging stations remains low at less than 2 per cent making the operations unviable and to achieve profitability and scalability, 8-10 per cent utilisation is required by 2030. 

The FICCI report also highlights key challenges that need to be addressed to scale up charging infrastructure, ranging from financial constraints, high infrastructure costs & low utilisation rates to operational constraints, lack of uninterrupted power supply and lack of standardised protocols to enable interoperability. 

For instance, the current cost structure of electricity tariffs with fixed charges regardless of energy consumption combined with low utilisation at public charging stations is making it challenging to achieve break even. 

States like UP, Delhi and Gujarat have no/low fixed tariffs but there are other states where fixed tariffs are high, thereby challenging the viability. 

Key stakeholders including policy makers, industry players and government bodies have been urged to enable India’s transition towards clean energy and sustainability. 

As per the report Ministry of Power’s recent guidelines should be followed across states to have a uniform charging framework.