Too little throughput, too little turnover: EnBW does not believe in a great future for AC charging stations.
The charging station operator EnBW has said goodbye to the construction of new public AC charging stations. “We continue to offer AC charging options for companies, as well as wall boxes for private use. But no longer in public space,” explained Timo Stillober, who is responsible for the e-mobility business at the energy company, to Edison magazine. Instead, the company relies on fast charging parks with eight or more charging points and partially connected infrastructure such as toilets or restaurants.
The manager cites the often uneconomical operation as one of the reasons for not using AC columns. Utilization during the day is low, at night a single car hangs on for hours, possibly a plug-in hybrid with a small battery. "All of this means that the price of electricity on an AC charger should actually be higher than on a DC fast charger," says Sillober. For this reason, he predicts an alignment of electricity prices for slow AC and fast DC columns for the future. The latter is currently significantly higher.