Stepping on the gas to accelerate India’s e-mobility
The electric mobility ecosystem is expanding in India. The government is taking steps to reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels and place electric vehicles (EVs) as the primary alternative to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. If India must move towards electrification, it has to be consistent with a larger push towards overall sustainability. By 2030, NITI Aayog expects to reach 70% EV market penetration for all commercial vehicles, 30% for private vehicles, 40% for buses, and 80% for two and three-wheelers to reach net zero by 2070.
However, one of the biggest roadblocks in achieving this target is the lack of EV charging stations in India, as per an EY report. High operating costs, uncertainty in utilization rates of charging stations, and additional load on electricity discoms are some of the other factors creating a hostile environment for operators, resulting in an insufficient number of charging stations.
However, policymakers are taking steps to address this issue and provide regulatory support for setting up charging infrastructure for EVs. The number of charging stations is likely to increase to 100,000 by 2027 to accommodate the ~1.4 million EVs expected on the roads, suggests the report.
In line with the government policy, Adani TotalEnergies E-Mobility Limited (ATEEL) – the 100% subsidiary of Adani Total Gas Limited, which is a JV between the Adani Group and Total Energies – is uniquely positioned to play an active role in the electric mobility business by creating Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure across B2B and B2C verticals. Their EV charging network will be deployed across prominent retail space, national highways, state expressways, commercial complexes, residential segments, and other points of interest for EV owners.
The company aims to build EV charging network by setting up over 1,500 EV charging stations across the country and has a vision to expand on the basis of the demand generation and faster EV adoption in the country.
Currently, they have commissioned over 100 charging points across 27 sites, which are spread across major cities and are deployed under public charging stations (PCS) and Captive Charging Stations (CCS) business models. Six hundred such stations are to come up in major cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Surat and Pune over 10 months from this March onwards and over 7,000 chargers will be set up in residential societies in Mumbai over the next three years. Apart from this, at few prominent airports, EVs will run inside the airports to ferry passengers & cargo to aircraft and back.
Towards digitization
ATEEL brings “Charging as a Service”, which includes EV charging solutions catering to e2W, e3W & e4W categories of vehicles. Their comprehensive service offering addresses the EV charging needs of B2C & B2B customers with wide range of EV chargers compatible with all the prevailing passenger and commercial segment range of vehicles. All the chargers are on-boarded on ATEEL’s digital platform (charger management system or mobile application), which brings unified and ubiquitous user experience for an EV user.
This customer journey – from discovery of a charging station to authentication/ registration, charging, and billing settlements – aims to provide a valuable way of optimizing the charging process, by integrating EVs that are being charged at the station and considering energy availability and customer preferences.
Chargers are on-boarded as PCS, Semi-Public Charging Stations (SPCS) and CCS based on the nature of usage and location tie-up.
Their product portfolio includes setting up of AC & DC range of EV chargers with varied power ratings of 3.3 kW & 7.36 kW on AC side and 15kW, 20 kW, 30 kW, 60 kW, 90 kW, 150 kW & 240kW of DC Side. These chargers can facilitate slow and fast charging requirement for different set of vehicles applicable on different charging standards like CCS 2 & GB/T, which are widely adapted by all the major automobile OEMs in India.
Their recent strategic pacts and partnerships include tie-ups with fleet aggregators, bus depots, airports landside and airside, highway pit-stops, educational institutions and many more.
Energising Airports: Successfully commissioned 32 charging points at major airports like Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangalore, Coimbatore, Guwahati and Lucknow. These chargers are deployed as PCS at landside parking and will facilitate EV charging for public and commercial vehicles compatible on CCS 2 & GB/T standards. We have also developed charging infra at airside, which will cater to the captive charging needs of airlines and airport logistics.
Fleet Charging: Recently deployed Hub Charging Solution at e-Vera fleet hub at Okhla, Delhi, which is one of the leading 100% EV fleet operators in Delhi- NCR. 27 charging points have been commissioned, including six DC fast and 21 AC slow.
Bus Depot Charging: Foraying into the e-HCV, installed 240 kW bus depot charging solution at GIFT City, Ahmedabad and for one of the major airlines at MIAL airport for airside passenger transit.
Educational Institutions: As a part of tie-up with one of the promising EV space start-ups, deployed EV charging facility at premier educational institutes like IIT Mumbai, MIT Manipal, etc.
Public Charging: Successfully won the bids for installing EV charging infrastructure as PCS in 7 cities across India – Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Surat and Ahmedabad. This would cater to installation of approximately over 500 charging points under CESL and Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Ltd (PMPML) tenders. Charging solution will cater to e2W, e3W & e4W categories of vehicles with some additional customer experience centres at some of the PMPML sites in Pune.
- The Way Forward
EVs are a cleaner and greener alternative and, therefore, an important part of the plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the manufacture and use of EVs contribute to environmental degradation. For instance, a green vehicle like Toyota Prius emits about 177 g CO2e/mi (grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per mile) even with an impressive 56 mpg and a Tesla Model 3 emits approximately 376 g CO2e for every kilometer. The Tesla’s state-of-the-art materials, particularly that $30,000 battery, take a massive amount of energy to build – and that energy comes from fossil fuels, particularly coal.
Hence, a key challenge is operating the charging stations, which depend primarily on polluting thermal power plants. Therefore, it is vital to ensure that the power source is clean energy, such as solar, wind, or hybrid power plants.
It is clear that battery electric vehicles are the way to go as far as two-wheelers, light vehicles and even to some extent small trucks and buses are concerned. But when we move to heavy duty vehicles like mining trucks, a different approach to electrification is needed – hydrogen fuel cells.
These take the same time to charge as an electric battery does. In a heavy-duty truck, 1/3 of the weight becomes the battery. It doesn’t scale very well. It’s not the case with hydrogen fuel cell. An electric bus derives power from the battery whereas in a hydrogen fuel cell bus, the transmission is the same as the electric bus, but the electricity comes from a fuel cell which converts the hydrogen to power.
