Over the next four years, up to 35,000 public charging points will be added in the provinces of North Holland, Flevoland and Utrecht. To this end, MRA-Elektrisch has tendered for 74 municipalities. Shell ubitricity, Vattenfall InCharge and TotalEnergies will install, manage and operate the charging stations. The first poles could be on the streets as early as mid-2024. "If all goes well, the number of electric cars will continue to grow in the coming years," explains Jeroen Olthof, deputy of the province of North Holland.
"With this joint tender, we are prepared for that growth. The award goes to three parties that also looked closely at how the new generation of charging stations should function and look," Olthof said. The charging stations on the street must be well used. The placement of charging stations is therefore done at the request of electric drivers. Also, if data shows that a charging station is busy, charging stations are added nearby.
The three winners of the concession stand out among other things with their ideas for the functionality and design of the charging station. A new charging station that takes up less space and fits into the streetscape. Municipalities have the option of choosing a specific color. Thanks to grid-aware charging, grid congestion is taken into account.
Smart charging
At these new public charging stations, smart charging is standard. This means that charging takes place mainly when the electricity grid is quieter, at times when a lot of green energy (solar or wind energy) is generated and the electricity price is low. This happens automatically so the e-driver does not have to notice anything. Thanks to smart charging, the charging session is shifted to a more favorable time: for example, from the evening to the middle of the night. All three charging station operators allow the e-driver to benefit from this through variable charging rates, making the e-driver cheaper.
Net-aware charging
The tender also anticipated grid congestion. As with fast chargers (which require a heavy grid connection), grid congestion also plays a role with regular charging stations. The new charging stations are suitable for "grid-conscious charging. Together with the grid operators, the guideline for net-aware charging was presented in late 2023 to solve bottlenecks on the grid. At those spots on the grid where the demand for electricity is momentarily too high, charging station operators can then temporarily reduce the capacity of the charging stations.
