Greenway to install at least 300 EV charging points in Croatia in 5 years

The initiative significantly contributes to increasing the use of renewable energy sources in transportation, the company said in a LinkedIn post on Thursday, following the opening of two ultra-fast EV charging stations at a retail park in the northern town of Ivanec, near the upcoming Varazdin – Ivanec – Krapina expressway.

Each of the two charging points has a 150 kW power capacity, with two CCS connections each, allowing for the simultaneous charging of up to four vehicles.

According to Greenway Hrvatska's website, the company plans to invest 30 million euro ($32.5 million) in the development of critical infrastructure in the next five years, which will result in a network of over 300 ultra-fast chargers.

Croatia, with 34 chargers per 100,000 inhabitants, lags significantly behind the most developed nations like the Netherlands by almost 20-fold and is three times less developed than the European Union average, it added.

On April 13, 2024, the European Regulation on the introduction of infrastructure for alternative fuels (AFIR) came into effect, mandating that member states ensure publicly accessible recharging stations provide a total power output of at least 1.3 kW for each battery electric car or van and 0.8 kW for each plug-in hybrid registered in their territory, until electric vehicles reach a 15% share of the total registered vehicles.

Greenway Hrvatska predicts a significant surge in demand for charging services due to a projected tenfold increase in registered vehicles to nearly 50,000 by 2030 in Croatia, coupled with an expected rise in tourists arriving with electric vehicles from 50,000 to at least 1 million. This influx of foreign tourists, or "roamers," is expected to require charging services on public infrastructure three times more than domestic needs. To meet this demand, the company emphasizes the need to boost the installed capacity from the current 20 MW of publicly available chargers to at least 130 MW, necessitating an investment exceeding 100 million euro by 2030.

($ = 0.924 euro)