From pv magazine Germany
Supermarket parking lots are becoming key sites for charging infrastructure in urban areas. A recent study by the Reiner Lemoine Institute found that supermarket charging stations could cut demand for public charging points in Berlin by up to 17%, provided they are used more efficiently – an area where major gaps remain.
By 2045, around 1.4 million electric cars and light commercial vehicles are expected to be on the roads of the German capital. Meeting that demand will require about 330,000 charging points, roughly 10 times more than are available today. Project calculations show that most of this demand will arise in non-public areas, including supermarket car parks.
Better use of existing chargers at such locations could ease the pressure on public infrastructure, which often faces long approval and planning delays.
The “Retail4Multi-Use” project, led by researchers from the Reiner Lemoine Institute and the German Aerospace Center, explored how existing infrastructure could be optimized. The study found that shared use with predictable user groups – such as taxi fleets, logistics firms, and car-sharing operators – could make a significant difference.
The researchers concluded that multi-use concepts can markedly improve the economic efficiency of existing charging networks, with model calculations indicating gains of up to 255%. A dedicated matching platform is being developed to connect owners of charging points with potential users.
A pilot project has already launched in Berlin, where Berliner Wasserbetriebe and energy supplier Vattenfall are sharing charging infrastructure at a Netto supermarket parking lot.
“Some colleagues, for example from the laboratory or from metering, often have long trips across the city,” said Nils Brätsch from Berliner Wasserbetriebe's technical services and fleet management department. “The multi-use concept enables us to quickly recharge near work sites, thus saving travel time to the depot – an approach that can also be transferred to other companies.”
Germany's Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Transport supported the Retail4Multi-Use project under the Electromobility Funding Guidelines.
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Applying a fee for occupying an EV Charger space while NOT charging your vehicle would also be a good method of freeing up chargers better. If you put your EV on a charger and it is fully charged, an alert would go to your phone notifying you of this and after 15 minutes, a separate hourly fee would start to be applied if you don’t move your EV to a regular parking spot. In other words an EV charger would be used as it is intended and that is for charging an EV but not as a parking spot.
Thanks,
Angus