Of over 50,000 publicly available charging points in Germany, only 7,240 were set up with federal funding by August 2021. That’s just 15 percent. In fact, more than 28,000 charging points were approved by the federal government. So the interest of business was there.
But only twelve percent of the approved funding was actually accessed, according to figures from the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport. The funding will only flow once the charging stations have been put into operation and the relevant documents have been checked.
The latest funding program for public charging infrastructure is currently underway, with the federal government providing 500 million euros from 2021 to 2025. But the scenario of the previous program threatens to repeat itself.
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The Federal Association of Energy and Water Management (BDEW), whose members are also charging station operators, blames bureaucratic chaos for the fact that so far only comparatively few charging points have been set up and the subsidies for them have been called up.
BDEW boss Kerstin Andreae says: “The funding procedures for public charging infrastructure are too complicated and too lengthy. They cause a lot of bureaucracy for the applicants.”
The application process for a grant can take several months
EnBW, the largest charging station operator in Germany, confirms: “For subsidized locations, the application, planning and implementation periods extend by around six to twelve months on average.” The application process for funding alone can take several months. Other companies report that they are also waiting half a year or longer for the government to transfer the funding.
Now GmbH, which coordinates the expansion of the charging infrastructure for the Ministry of Transport, explains: “The timing of the outflow of funds also depends on the duration of the project implementation by the applicant.”
Now GmbH considers the optimization of application processing in the funding programs to be “a continuous design task in which the goals of rapid application processing and timely project implementation on the one hand must be reconciled with the principle of a proper and most efficient use of budgetary funds on the other”.
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In a position paper, the BDEW is now making suggestions for reducing bureaucracy. This is the prerequisite for the federal funding programs to be successful. The most important points include:
- The application process is to be simplified and fully digitized.
Previously, companies had to fill out a complete application for each individual charging station, master data was not saved. Some medium-sized companies hired one or more working students just to fill out the funding applications online.
What charging station operators miss is above all an online update on the processing status of the application. “There is never any information about the application status. This creates a climate of investment uncertainty,” says one medium-sized company.
- Flat-rate grants are intended to replace individually granted project grants.
The National Control Center for Charging Infrastructure confirmed that the processing of applications by the project sponsors is “one of the bottlenecks in the development of subsidized charging infrastructure”. Long processing times also result from rather small-scale and individual applications.
The BDEW therefore proposes that public charging stations be funded in the same way as private wall boxes with the KfW 440 program. The program was also a success because it reimbursed all applicants a lump sum in an unbureaucratic manner.
Now GmbH rejects the proposal: Funding by means of a lump sum is not appropriate in the area of publicly accessible charging infrastructure. “The variance in implementation costs is too great for that.”
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- It should also be possible to apply for funding after the facility has been put into operation.
No project may start before receipt of a funding decision, which can take months. If charging station operators then get a rejection, they have often waited in vain. However, subsequent funding for projects that have already been implemented without funding “contradicts the principles of proper budgetary management” and is not possible, according to Now GmbH.
Mains connection remains a major obstacle
Apart from the bureaucratic funding process, companies are also slow to set up charging stations because the connection to the grid takes so long. According to the Aral company, the average network operator needs six to nine months from the application to the actual installation of the medium-voltage connection.
The EnBW group also says that it has not noticed any improvement in the grid connection compared to the previous year. “On average, we wait six months for the grid connection. In some cases, the waiting time can be considerably longer,” the company said.
Charging station operators report months of waiting times for funding applications. Once the charging stations are in operation, it also takes a long time for the subsidies to be paid out.
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(Photo: imago images/STAR-MEDIA)
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The BDEW protects the network operators, who are also among its members. These are also dependent on third parties, such as various authorities, from which building permits must be obtained. This lengthens the connection process, which, according to a BDEW survey, would actually only take between nine and 13 weeks on average.
“More human capacities and digitization of the processes at the authorities would benefit all actors who are required for the construction of charging infrastructure,” writes the association. On the other hand, the implementation of the grid connection usually requires additional service providers who, for example, carry out civil engineering work. There may also be delays due to the shortage of skilled workers.
More: “Second-class charging stations will be created” – this is how the federal government is sadly planning the charging stations on the Autobahn
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