charging stations for Electric vehicles and work with drawing up a strategy for the development of fast charging in Norway.
3.4.2 Charging programmes - Transnova, municipalities and counties
The charging programmes have one thing in common - private citizens cannot apply.
Otherwise the amount of support and facilities vary.
Transnova’s support programme for charge points was established with a limit of NOK 50 million in 2009, as part of a larger crisis package to counteract the financial crisis. The funds were to go to normal charge points, and there were no guidelines related to where these charge points could be established in the country. The first come first served principle applied, and all documented costs up to NOK 30,000 per charge point were covered. The programme resulted in a total of 1,800 charge points.
By far the most charge points cost less than the maximum amount. In 2011 and 2012, Transnova has given support to around fifty fast charge stations, and additional support will be provided in 2013. The fast charge stations are supported with up to NOK 200,000, while the total incurred costs typically are from NOK 500,000 – 1,000,000 excluding VAT. The support limit will be increased slightly in the next call;
see
A new development is the establishment of semi-fast charge stations (20 kW). ´When it comes to the costs for this, some are more reasonable than for fast-charging
Oslo Municipality has its own charge station programme, where, in addition to providing support for establishing charge stations, 404 charge points have been established and are being operated under municipal management up to 2013. For example, the municipality leases a floor in the Saga P House at Slottsparken, and has adapted this for free parking and charging with space for 30 Electric vehicles. At Aker Brygge an EV parking and charging facility with space for 50 Electric vehicles is established. The support programme targets housing cooperatives, condominiums and commercial players that can receive up to NOK 10,000 per charge point, limited to 60% of documented costs eligible for support. The charge point must have its own reserved EV parking space. The charge point can be publically available for everyone, or reserved for vehicles belonging to the organisation receiving support.
The recipient is obligated to operate the charge station for at least 5 years. There have been some challenges in getting joint housing properties and cooperatives to introduce charging. A new guide for this has just been completed; see
Akershus County Council has also had a support programme that provided a support of up to NOK 10,000 per charge point. A total of NOK 2.0 million was allocated in 2012, i.e. support for up to 200 charge points. Up to NOK 1.0 million was allocated in 2011 for support to establish charge points in sports facilities (a maximum of NOK 10,000 or 60% of the documented expenses per point). Øst-Agder and Vest- Agder County Councils have provided support of NOK 600,000 for establishing four fast charge stations in these southern regions in 2013. (The county councils’ web pages and newspaper articles constitute sources for this section.)
Chapter 10 deals with challenges for the commercial operation of charge stations.
3.4.3 Public procurement
The public procurement of vehicles is decentralised to municipalities, counties and government enterprises with a great degree of independence. There are no
requirement that these must use Electric vehicles or Plug-in hybrids in their own operations. However, they are confronted with the same framework conditions as other vehicle buyers with regard to taxes, fees and other incentives. Many
municipalities and counties prefer leasing vehicles. This presents a challenge since they have to pay VAT on leasing Electric vehicles, while they do not have to do this if they purchase Electric vehicles. Normally, municipal technical utilities, such as water and sewage works, are distinguished as municipal companies that make their own decisions about which vehicles should be used. The counties purchase few vehicles for their activities. However, they have great influence on the purchase of public transport and will be an important player in relation to future purchases of electric buses.
Government enterprises and other government agencies can use Electric vehicles on a relatively large scale. In particular, this applies to the Norwegian Postal Service that has an environmental strategy involving the replacement of 1,300 diesel vehicles with electric “trolleys”, 3-wheeled electric MCs and other electrically propelled transport vehicles. With support from Transnova, Trondheim has served as a test area for the strategy of the Norwegian Postal Service. Gradually, however, Electric vehicles will
be introduced into more places
Postal Service had 643 Electric vehicles at its disposal of which 24 were Electric cars, 261 electric mopeds, 213 electric jeeps and 145 electric trolleys
smoothly. In Northern Norway, parts of the fleet have stood still while waiting for a battery upgrade. In the Northwest Region they have not been able to complete the route with Electric vehicles, and have had to reload onto diesel cars to complete deliveries on the last half of the route. The delivery men complain that the vehicles are cold.
Figure 14: Photo: Tidens krav, The Norwegian Postal Service’s electric trolley, electric moped and Electric car. Source: www.siste.no/motormagasinet/article6028271.ece.
In addition, the Norwegian Public Roads Administration has lots of vehicles at its disposal, but a great number of these are used by those working with road
development. Many of these are robust 4-wheeled drive diesel vehicles. The agency has purchased a few Electric vehicles.
Table 5 shows figures for purchases of EV fleets in some Norwegian municipalities.
In addition, there are many municipalities that have purchased one or few Electric vehicles for evaluation and testing.
Table 5: Examples of current EV procurement in Norwegian municipalities. Source: Miscellaneous press coverage.
Municipality Current procurement of EV fleets
Oslo Tender on framework agreement for purchase of up to 1,000 Electric cars and electric vans in the period from 2013 to 2016. Have allocated NOK 50 million to the scheme where the city districts can be granted a loan without interest rate for purchasing Electric vehicles.
Oppegård (Akershus) 29 Nissan Leaf will be delivered in April 2013
Trondheim 60 Electric vehicles in 2013 (previously has 38 Electric vehicles) Bergen Will increase to 200 before 2015; previously has 33
Municipalities in Nord-Møre 26 Mitsubishi i-MiElectric vehicles
It is estimated that about 2,000 passenger cars and minivans per year will be purchased or leased for publically controlled vehicle fleets (Klimakur 2010).