ESO, municipalities and flour organizations plan to build 10,000 charging stations for electric cars in our country

Bulgaria to have 10,000 charging stations for electric vehicles within five years and to charge them with renewable sources. This is one of the goals of the memorandum of cooperation signed today by the Electricity System Operator, the National Association of Municipalities in the Republic of Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Branch Chamber of Power Engineers, the Bulgarian Electric Vehicles Association, the Electric Vehicles Industrial Cluster and the Bulgarian Electric Vehicle Owners Association.

The document is a starting point for future cooperation between the countries to build by the end of 2025 an adequate infrastructure of charging stations for electric vehicles throughout the country. The electricity system operator will provide access for connection of the built charging stations to its electricity transmission network, the company announced.

The goal is to build 10,000 stations for charging electric cars from renewable sources in the whole country within five years. ESO operates 297 substations, which allows the charging infrastructure to be national in scope. It is planned to deploy groups of slow and fast charging stations to serve light electric cars, public and heavy electric transport.

The cooperation agreement takes into account the expected mass influx of electric vehicles in the period from 2030 to 2040. The forecast of ESO experts indicates that by 2030 electric cars in Bulgaria will reach 200,000, and to cover their annual electricity consumption will require 600,000 MWh of electricity.

ESO estimates predict that by 2040 the number of electric cars in Bulgaria will be 2,000,000 with an annual electricity consumption of nearly 6,000,000 MWh, and in 2050 their number will reach 3,500,000, for the supply of which more than 10,000,000 MWh of electricity. Currently, the car fleet in Bulgaria consumes liquid fuels, the equivalent of which is 45 million MWh. The mass influx of electric vehicles by 2050 will reduce energy consumption in transport three times.

The Memorandum of Cooperation provides for the parties to exchange information on the state of the infrastructure, current and expected need for locations and appropriate charging capacity, decisions of the government and municipalities, as well as financial estimates of the necessary resources for the development of this infrastructure. The countries that signed the Memorandum of Cooperation welcomed the initiative of the Electricity System Operator and the company's determination to actively participate with its resources to deploy the national infrastructure of charging stations for electric vehicles.

The national charging infrastructure will promote the utilization of electricity from renewable sources and the development of ecological transport throughout the country, including in settlements remote from the main roads.