New plans for south east Europe chargers

Bulgaria’s Eldrive is targeting Romania and Bulgaria for the installation of 60% of the 10,574 electric vehicle charging (EVC) stations it will deploy with the help of a loan from the European Investment Bank, group CEO Stefan Spassov told SeeNews.

The number of charging stations to be installed in the two countries of south east Europe as well as Lithuania and Latvia will take into account the respective size and the estimated EV uptake in each of the markets, Spassov told SeeNews by email.

“Eldrive currently partners with the Plugsurfing platform, which brings together charging station operators with over 500,000 charging points in Europe. We are following with interest the impressive development of Ampeco and welcome all efforts that support electric mobility,” Spassov said.

Founded in 2012, Berlin-based Plugsurfing has developed a digital pan-European sustainable mobility platform that links up EV drivers, charging point operators and carmakers. Last September, US based business payments company FleetCor Technologies acquired Plugsurfing from Finnish investment management group Valkea for EUR75m (US$81.85m).

Ampeco is a Bulgaria-based developer of white label EV charging software which earlier this year closed a $16m (EUR14.7m) Series A fundraising round led by BMW i Ventures.

Last year, with work on installing superfast EV charging hubs in Bulgaria, Eldrive began the next phase of its growth on the domestic market, after achieving full national coverage and a well-developed network on major road routes, Spassov noted.

He added that ABB, with which Eldrive is partnering to develop the hubs in Bulgaria and gradually across SEE, will remain an important partner, which will likely have its share in the future development of fast charging infrastructure in all the markets where Eldrive operates.

“The aim is to respond in advance to the growing demand and ensure the possibility during seasonal and peak loads, to guarantee simultaneous charging of more cars – between eight and 20 at each of our hubs,” the CEO said.

Spassov said the approved financing from the EIB is part of a large scale and complex investment project at group level, which will allow the business to quickly and efficiently develop and upgrade the Eldrive network in all markets in which the company operates.

“This will make us one of the leading operators of charging infrastructure for electric cars in Europe,” he said.

The total cost of Eldrive’s project is EUR174m of which EIB is providing EUR40m in the form of a loan.

The signing of the loan agreement with EIB and the disbursement of the financing are to be finalised at a later date, in line with the steps required by the lender’s project cycle.

Eldrive is a wholly owned unit of Bulgarian company eMobility International and has over 800 EV charging points installed in Bulgaria, Romania and Lithuania. Emobility and hire company Spark are part of the portfolio of the Renalfa group.