Renault joins E-VIA FLEX-E project for HPC in Southern Europe
Renault has partnered with southern Europe’s first High Power Charging network, E-VIA FLEX-E. The network aims at charging with 150 – 350 kW just like Ionity, only that this time, it is the South of Europe that is to be connected by the year’s end. Partners include Nissan and Enel among others while funding comes from the EU.
E-VIA FLEX-E will kick off at the end of 2018 with Renault outlining the installation of a total of 14 ultra-fast charging stations in Italy (8), France (2) and Spain (4). The new High Power Charging (HPC) stations with a capacity of between 150kW and 350kW will be located along motorways and expressways.
The project is part of the European Commission’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for Transport programme. CEF will fund half of the project’s total budget of 6.9 million euros. With Renault on board are ENEL as the project lead, Nissan, EDF, Enedis, Verbund and IBIL.
Renault-Nissan is anything but alone in its effort to install very fast-charging infrastructure across Europe. Ionity released the map of 400 HPC stations a few days ago and has started the installation last year.
The Ultra-E high power charging network had started as a pilot as early as 2016 with Allego, Audi, BMW, Renault, Hubject, and Smatrics expecting to complete the TEN-T charging corridor through Germany, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands this year.
Allego also initiated the Mega-E HPC network together with Fortum Charge & Drive. Together they want to erect 322 ultra-fast charging stations and 27 so-called e-charging hubs throughout Europe, and in metropolitan areas alongside highways and to enable continuous fast-charging in more than 20 countries. Mega-E’s kick-off is planned within the first half of 2018. Debuting countries will be Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Great Britain.
While it has not been confirmed, it seems anything but coincidence that Efacec building a new factory in Portugal, where it plans to increase capacity to 3,800 fast-charging stations made per year. The new facility in Maia is set to begin production of fast chargers as of now and a possibility for further expansion to make up to 9,000 units a year is in the cards (we reported).
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