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A public charging station: Due to the sluggish expansion, they are still a rarity in some places
Photo: Marijan Murat / dpa
"We don't want to watch and wait until it's built. That's why we're setting up a global fast-charging network ourselves," said Mercedes-Benz boss
Ola Källenius
(53) recently when he presented plans for his own charging network with 10,000 charging points worldwide at the beginning of January .
The charging stations should be connected to the grid by the end of the decade.
For this, the carmaker is taking a single-digit billion amount into its own hands.
A few weeks earlier, BMW CFO
Nicolas Peter
(60) complained about the charging infrastructure for electric cars.
"Something has to happen here."
If the expansion continues as slowly as before, the goal of one million charging points by 2030 is not realistic.
"It's not enough if Norway or the Netherlands have a good infrastructure, the whole of Europe needs enough charging stations."
Because with the boom in e-car sales, the gap between supply and demand for charging in public spaces is increasing.
This is not due to a lack of ambition.
Automobile manufacturers and suppliers, electricity suppliers and oil and gas companies have already started to secure the best locations together with partners.
After all, electric car charging is developing into a multi-billion dollar business.
According to an analysis by the management consultancy Bain, sales in Europe will increase sixfold to between 40 and 55 billion euros by 2030, with profits likely to total up to 5 billion euros.
In addition, Berlin is pushing the development of the charging infrastructure with subsidies and legal requirements.
But missing parts, the necessary permits and the power grid connections throw a spanner in the works for the charging network operators.
They are now causing significant delays.
The Rewe Group recently had to postpone its goals by a year.
Now 6,000 charging points are to be set up at the supermarkets by the end of 2025.
Recently there were only four online.
The problems in the supply chains do not only affect charging network operators in Europe.
EVgo, America's largest provider of public fast charging stations, had to lower its forecast at the end of 2022 because of a lack of transformers and skilled workers.
At the end of the third quarter, 130 of the company's newly installed charging stations were waiting to be connected to the local grid, said EVgo CEO
Cathy Zoi
.
Transformers for fast charging stations are missing
Transformers (in short: transformers) are the large gray boxes next to the charging stations.
They ensure the connection to the power grid and reduce the voltage of the electricity in order to make it usable for the devices.
They are therefore indispensable for the construction of the particularly popular HPC (High Power Charging) ultra-fast charging stations, which, with a charging capacity of up to 350 kW, enable full charging in less than 30 minutes.
Market observers report that the delivery times for voltage converters have more than doubled in the past year.
Operators currently have to wait around 50 weeks for the transformers to be ordered, says
Patrick Plötz
, head of the energy management business area at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI.
Waiting times of more than a year, and the trend is rising
EnBW, operator of the largest fast charging network in Germany, even speaks of "extended delivery times of currently between 40 and 70 weeks - with a current upward trend".
It is currently difficult to compensate for this with new suppliers or additional capacity expansion on the part of the suppliers, says Heiko Willrett, press spokesman for sales and electromobility at EnBW.
Delays in the expansion are also confirmed by Ionity, a joint venture between the car manufacturers BMW, Ford, Hyundai, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen and the financial investor Blackrock.
"All in all, there are many different aspects to consider when expanding charging stations, such as access to land, building permits and power grid connections. In 2022, the availability of transformers and charging stations has also deteriorated," the company reports.
The decisive factor for this is the high demand and scarcity of electronic components.
Given the high demand, there is no sign of an easing on the market.
The operators want to massively expand their charging networks.
EnBW alone expects to need a low four-digit number of additional substations in the next three years.
Theoretically, a transformer station can supply around five charging stations in the highest performance class at full capacity, according to the energy supplier.
In practice, the value is higher because charging locations are usually not fully utilized over the long term.
"Each transformer station is a one-off production"
The individual requirements of some distribution network operators also ensure the long delivery times for the transformers.
The devices must be well adapted to the local conditions, says Plötz.
A massive problem for the charging network operators: because the almost 900 distribution network operators in Germany each have their own requirements that a transformer must meet.
"Each transformer station is basically a one-off production," complains EnBW spokesman Willrett.
Collective orders are correspondingly difficult.
This not only delays procurement, but also everything that depends on it - planning, production and commissioning of transformer stations and technology for controlling the charging infrastructure.
Accordingly, the expansion of the nationwide fast charging infrastructure is not progressing as quickly as we would like.
Other charging network operators make similar statements.
In order not to be dependent on the transformers, some providers rely on so-called buffer storage.
They relieve the power grid and temporarily replace a grid connection.
Some industry experts see this as a possibility if the frequency at the charging stations is rather low.
Otherwise it takes too long to recharge the batteries.
Others, on the other hand, do not consider the buffer storage to be a fully-fledged alternative, but rather as a supplement for peak times when there is a lot of activity at the charging station.
But there are also long delivery times for storage and other parts – for routers, light poles or fuse boxes, for example.
"Hardware in general is always a problem," says the company concerned.
The bureaucracy monsters Construction and grid connection
Another problem: Building permits and approvals for grid connection further delay the expansion.
Fast charging stations are often more than two meters high and therefore have special requirements.
The building requirements vary between countries.
The mains connection accounts for the majority of the project time for some providers.
It can sometimes take up to two years for an offer from the network operator alone, and the actual connection to the network after the order has been placed then takes just as long, according to informed circles.
The consequence: Drivers see a ready-made charging station that cannot be used for several months.
According to data from the Federal Network Agency from the beginning of November 2022, the number of charging points increased by around 17,000 to a total of 72,000 within a year.
Of these, around 60,000 are normal charging points and 12,000 are fast charging points.
At this rate of expansion, the goal of Transport Minister
Volker Wissing
(52, FDP) of one million charging points in 2030 would only be achieved mathematically in 2077.
It should now go faster thanks to the "Charging Infrastructure Master Plan II" decided in October - with less bureaucracy, standardized approval processes and more available space.
6.3 billion euros are earmarked for this.
After all, at least 15 million fully electric cars are to be on German roads by 2030.
Obstacle for e-car buyers?
Due to the sluggish expansion of the charging infrastructure, Germany will miss this target, forecasts the management consultancy PwC.
According to a study, there will probably only be 10.5 million electric cars.
A consumer survey by the management consultancy Deloitte also states that the lack of infrastructure is slowing down the switch to electric cars.
The energy industry association BDEW, on the other hand, denies that the lack of charging stations is an obstacle to the spread of electric cars.
After all, there are more and more charging options available in private and semi-public areas (at work or in customer parking spaces).
In a survey conducted by the association, consumers gave a positive assessment of the development of public charging options.
One thing is certain: In a European comparison, Germany is not bad at all with its charging station expansion. With an average of 25.8 charging points n per 100 km, Germany is one of the pioneers, according to an analysis by the European manufacturer association Acea.
Only the Netherlands (64.3) and Luxembourg (57.9) have more charging points.
Poland, Estonia and Greece bring up the rear.
But it could just go even better with the expansion.