PRESS: Rosseti wants to monopolize e-cars charging stations market

MOSCOW, Oct 7 (PRIME) -- The Russian government is considering creating a united operator of electric cars charging stations, with power grid holding Rosseti seeking to monopolize the market, Kommersant business daily said on Thursday, citing an industry source and a governmental official.

According to the daily, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov ordered the Energy Ministry at a July meeting to determine a potential federal operator of charging infrastructure for electric cars in Russia. One of the proposals at the meeting mentioned Rosseti as a candidate for the task.

“As of now, the issue of a single operator is in limbo,” Kommersant reported.

With a network of 263 stations and plans to expand to 1,340 stations by 2025, Rosseti is not even a leader in terms of output compared to other companies in the market, yet the company is the one who pushes the idea of the sole operator, the reported, citing one of the sources.

Russia plans to expand the charging network by 1,200 regular and 528 fast-charge stations in 2022. The country expects to construct 144,000 stations to secure high coverage for a potential total of 1.4 million electric cars by 2030. The government plans to subsidize construction of the stations with 8.1 billion rubles to cover about 60% of the construction costs.

(72.5682 – U.S. $1)

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