The Power Ministry has proposed that the tariff for supplying electricity to electric vehicle (EV) charging stations shall be a single part tariff and should not exceed the Average Cost of Supply (AcoS) till March 31, 2026.
This forms part of the draft revised guidelines on electric vehicle charging infrastructure for EVs prepared by the Ministry and released on Monday. Stakeholders have been asked to share their responses on the same by August 1, 2024.
Besides the single part tariff, the draft also proposes that the cost of supply by Distribution Licensee (Discom) to EV charging station will be 0.7 times of ACoS during solar hours and 1.3 times ACoS during non-solar hours.
“Solar hours mean 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM time and non-solar hours mean the remaining period of the day. Separate metering arrangements shall be made for EV charging stations so that consumption may be recorded and billed as per applicable tariff for EV charging stations,” it added.
The public charging stations shall have the feature of prepaid and postpaid collection of service charges with the time of the day rates and discount for solar hours.
“Any public charging station/ group of charging stations may obtain electricity from any source through open access also. Open Access shall be provided for this purpose within 15 days of receipt of the application complete in all respects. They will be required to pay the applicable surcharge — equal to the current level of cross subsidy (not more than 20 per cent, as per the Tariff Policy Guidelines), transmission charges and wheeling charges. No other surcharge or charges shall be levied except mentioned in this provision,” the draft added.
Tie-up with NSP
The draft also proposes that the charging station operators tie up with at least one online Network Service Provider (NSPs) to enable advanced remote or online booking of charging slots (optional) by EV owners shall be made.
Such online information to EV owners should include information regarding location, types (indicating AC/ DC, Slow/ Fast, kW capacity, charging rates etc.) and numbers of chargers installed/ available, service charges for EV charging and any other information as specified by Central Nodal Agency (CNA) from time to time.
The government has also provided guidelines for the location for setting up EV public charging stations. It has proposed that at least one charging station shall be available in a grid of “1 km x 1 km” in the urban limits by FY30.
Further, one charging station shall be set up at every 20 km on both sides of highways or expressways or roads. For long range EVs and/ or heavy duty EVs like buses/trucks etc, there shall be at least one fast charging station at every 100 kms, one on each side of the highways or expressways or road located preferably within/ alongside the public charging stations.
Within cities, such charging facilities for heavy duty EVs may be located within transport nagars and bus depots, it added.