Every nation bears the responsibility of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. India, on its part, has committed to reducing its carbon footprint by 33-35 per cent by 2030 from the 2005 levels, as part of its NDCs under the Paris Agreement. Globally, transportation and power generation together account for more than half the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

To decarbonise power generation, the world is trying to move towards an energy mix with high percentages of renewables-based energy. India has set itself a target of installing 450 GW of renewables-based energy capacity by the year 2030 majority of those would be coming from Solar and wind which are variable in nature and, therefore, need to be balanced with storage capacity.

Against this background, electric vehicles (EVs) have emerged as an important element of strategies aimed at reducing emissions from the transportation sector and also aid decarbonising the power sector by providing much needed storage capacity through its batteries.

EVs have no tailpipe emissions as well as least lifecycle Green House Gas (GHG) emission amongst various power train-driven vehicles even with current mix of energy in the grid which is getting greener by the day.

Furthermore, EVs can balance the grid by drawing power during peak generation hours, storing it in the battery when they remain parked and releasing it back into the grid when needed. The relevance of EVs is thus beyond doubt.

Need for public charging

India because of its favourable demographic dividend (work force between age 15 and 64 estimated to be 1 billion by 2035), increasing urbanisation, rising incomes levels and consumption (estimated to account for 23 per cent middle class consumption by 2030) is poised to take leadership position in the automobile sector, in general, and EVs, in particular.

According to McKinsey’s 2016 EV consumer survey of buyers considering battery-powered EV in China, Germany, and the United States, consumers rank not having enough access to efficient charging stations as the third most serious barrier to EV purchase, behind price and driving range. Another report of McKinsey in 2018 indicated that India would be requiring more public charging than private charging owing its larger population density.

This also gets corroborated when we study the EV adoption and share of public charging in countries that have been early adopters of EV like Norway, US, The Netherlands, China, and Poland. Countries with higher population density have denser public charging network measured in number of vehicles to charge point (VCP).

The Netherlands (450 person sq per km) has a VCP of 4, China (150 people) has 6, and the US (36 ) has 79. Consumers’ intent get positively biased for purchasing BEV if they see availability of chargers.

That reinforces the necessity of public charging network which can be accessed by any EV user at any time. Additionally, in our country the problem of space can also be addressed by having more number of public chargers.

EVs are likely to be adopted first in cities. Unfortunately, most Indian cities are heavily congested. Very few city dwellers have the luxury of owning a garage for their car. As many as 70 per cent of cars in Delhi and Mumbai are estimated to be parked on the roads.

Public space that is used by multiple vehicles on a shared basis is much more efficient than the same amount of owned space dedicated to a single vehicle. Such spaces need to be identified across the city and authorised by the government for use by charge point operators engaged in the business of EV charging.

Private participation vital

Private participation will almost certainly be required for rapid progress towards an EV-based future of mobility. A McKinsey report in 2018 had estimated that India will need about five million public charging points, which will entail an investment of almost $6 billion by 2030.

Most, if not all, of this investment will have to come from the private sector. Currently, however, there are no clear policies or guidelines on allocation of parking-cum-charging space for private players. Government intervention will help in addressing this issue.

India took some important steps to expand the charging infrastructure network in the past couple of years. The first and very significant step was to treat EV charging as a “service”. This allows anyone to set up and operate EV charging station without requiring a license. The other positive step was to treat ‘EV Charging Station’ as a separate category under Tariff Order by electricity regulators.

The guidelines by the Ministry of Power, which allow various charger types to be deployed at public charging stations, settled the issue of charging standards as well. The Department of Heavy Industries’ scheme of setting up more than 2,600 public charging stations in various cities and more than 1,700 along highways is a step in the right direction. Such policies and guidelines provide a positive boost for EV adoption in the country to take off.

Looking ahead with optimism

The growing awareness among all stakeholders concerned about the developments in the sector and about the available solutions in the market will help drive the adoption of EVs and charging infrastructure. From awareness to action will need another push, for which the government and all concerned must come together.

The writer is Vice-President – Charge & Drive and Sustainability, Fortum India Pvt. Ltd

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