Bucharest-based energy company OMV Petrom has announced the construction of more than 400 new HPC points.
Each of these will have a capacity of 150 kW at will be installed at 98 locations in Romania, Slovakia and Hungary by the end of 2025.
OMV Petrom has said that 328 charging points will be installed at 80 locations in Romania, 52 at eleven locations in Slovakia and 28 at seven locations in Hungary.
This makes an average of between 4.0 and 4.7 charging points per location.
The sites will be located along the TEN-T Trans-European Transport Network.
The sites will help the three countries meet the requirements of the new EU alternative fuels infrastructure regulation, AFIR, which stipulates, among other things, that electric cars should be able to charge every 60 kilometres along major routes in the European Union by 2026.
For trucks and buses, the regulation specifies that there must be a charging station every 120 kilometres.
And by 2031, hydrogen refuelling stations must be installed at least every 200 kilometres along the main routes and be appropriate for larger vehicle types.
The total investment for the 400 fast charging points at 98 locations amounts to 40 million euros, of which about 15 million euros will come from EU funding.
Five million euros will be covered by a loan from Banca Comercială Română, according to the OMV-Petrom release, and “the rest of the financing will come from our own sources.”
So far, OMV Petrom has relied mainly on charging stations from partner companies at its service stations, such as Eldrive, Enel X and Renovatio.
Eldrive is also known to be receiving a grant from the EIB to develop its charging network in Eastern Europe.
“We are supporting our customers in the process of decarbonizing the transportation and we want to offer them as many mobility options as possible, including by developing the necessary infrastructure for alternative mobility. In the last three years we have installed recharging points largely through partnerships. Today, we have taken an important step in the development of our own network of electric recharging stations thus contributing to connect the Eastern Europe through the TEN-T corridor.”
