Delhi Govt Moves Ahead With EV Charging Infrastructure Plans

The Delhi Government has been moving ahead with its plan to build an effective EV charging infrastructure across the capital for faster uptake of EVs

The Delhi government has been planning to build on an effective Electric Vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure across the national capital for faster uptake of Electric Vehicles (EVs), and recently concluded the second meeting of the ‘Working Group on Accelerated Rollout of Charging Infrastructure in Delhi’.

At the meeting, Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot emphasised on the issue – to discuss the status of identification of potential land sites owned by government departments or agencies for setting up EV charging infrastructure in the city.

The Transport Minister in a statement said “Delhi has the distinction of having the maximum number of different land-owning agencies. We understand how crucial making an EV friendly ecosystem is to the effective implementation of this policy, and I am happy to note that all these land-owning agencies are aligned to the Delhi government and our CMs vision of Delhi the EV capital of India.”

“Our working group is already working diligently on identifying probable locations for installing charging infrastructure, and in the next few weeks, we are confident of having a final list of locations where charging stations would come up,” Gahlot said.

The first meeting for the Working Group on Accelerated Rollout of Charging Infrastructure in Delhi was held on September 17, 2020, this year in which the members had agreed that the Delhi Transco Limited (DTL) as the State Nodal Agency for EVs will pool government land parcels and integrate a state-wise tender to install charging stations across the city of Delhi. Simultaneously, DTL and Delhi Discoms (BSES, TP-DDL) will also conduct a joint survey of the land parcels to identify sites for Priority 1 of the tendering process.

The Delhi EV Policy, 2020 targets 25 percent of all new vehicle registrations by 2024 to be Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs). In order to encourage the rapid adoption of electric vehicles, the government is focusing on the “speedy rollout of Electric Vehicle charging Infrastructure in Delhi”.

For the installation of EV charging stations, a centralised tendering system will be adopted to hire an energy operator to run, maintain and upgrade charging stations. The land-owning agencies will be required to provide land for the installation of public EV charging stations.

At the first meeting, it was agreed that all the government agencies in Delhi including the three MCDs, NDMC, DDA, PWD, transport department, DTC, DMRC, and DSIIDC will carry out a comprehensive planning exercise over the next two weeks to identify concessional locations within their jurisdictions for the purpose of setting up public electric vehicle (EV) charging stations.

It was also agreed at the meeting that given the emphasis of the Delhi EV Policy on mass adoption of EVs in the two-wheeler and three-wheeler vehicle segments, the charging infrastructure should focus primarily on setting up a large number of slow-charging stations consisting of AC-001 charging points (3.3 kW each) and a limited number of DC-001 fast chargers (15 kW each), instead of setting up a few expensive fast-charging stations that cater primarily for premium four-wheelers.

Additionally, developing a wide network of battery-swapping stations was also identified as a key priority.