Germany opens charging station grants application online

In Germany, applications for funding for the development of charging infrastructure can be submitted again with immediate effect and all online. An important exception for customer parking spaces is new.

In its fifth call for funding guidelines ‘Charging infrastructure for electric vehicles in Germany’, the Federal ministry BMVI is supporting the establishment of up to 7,000 ordinary and 3,000 fast-charging points.

Private investors, cities and municipalities can now submit applications via a dedicated website until 17 June 2020.  Investments related to hardware as well as network connection costs for standard and fast charging points are eligible for funding. In concrete terms, the federal government will cover up to 50 per cent of the eligible costs. As always, one of the prerequisites is that the charging points are publicly accessible and operated with renewable energy.

The online location tool that identifies supply gaps in the nationwide store network is also used in this call for funding. With the help of this tool, the BMVI wants to specifically eliminate the existing “white spots” in the charging infrastructure network by applying the respective maximum funding quotas in areas with high demand.

In the fifth call for funding, the federal government is paying particular attention to charging points for customer car parks. Against this background, the BMVI emphasises that in this case, uninterrupted public access does not have to be guaranteed. But there is a minimum requirement: “Accessibility must be guaranteed at least twelve hours a day on weekdays,” the call states. This means that the first time, any company with a customer car park – whether it is at a supermarket or medium-sized factory – can for also benefit from subsidies for the development of charging infrastructure!

In a recent interim review of the Federal Charging Infrastructure Programme, the Federal Government announced that on average only just under 60 per cent of applications are approved – mainly due to the high number of requests. A total of around 7,400 charging points had been set up by December 2019, which had received funding from the “Federal Charging Infrastructure Programme”. A further 12,600 charging points have been approved but not yet built.

With reporting by Cora Werwitzke

All sources in German: now-gmbh.de, twitter.com, now-gmbh.de (funding guidelines PDF)