Pushing to expand the recharging infrastructures in apartment buildings and neighbourhoods

Expanding the recharging infrastructure will have to be massively accelerated in order to realise the traffic light coalition's aim of having around 15 million fully-electric passenger cars on the road by 2030. Proximity to home will play a central role here, because every journey starts and ends at the front door - whether it’s going to work, to daycare centres or to the shops. The vehicles are also parked there for a comparatively long period of time. Therefore the majority of recharging processes will occur at home. The policy does not go far enough as the previous focus was placed on home-owners and public recharging infrastructures. It is just as important to promote expanding the recharging infrastructures in apartment buildings.

Installing recharging infrastructures in large residential and rental buildings is also an important component along the road to energy transition. Because: it will only be when home recharging works for the residents of larger residential units that the future vision of using e-vehicles as storage places for locally generated renewable energy will actually become reality. If e-vehicles can be integrated into the home supply in this way, then peaks in the demand and supply of electricity can also be balanced out.

GdW, ZVEI (German electrical and digital industry association), ZVEH (German Electrical and Information Manufacturers' Association) and VDA (German Automotive Industry Association) have combined to publish a guide that presents the central components for further developing the e-mobility recharging infrastructures and supporting housing associations and property owners in setting up recharging infrastructures for their tenants.

“The e-mobility breakthrough will only come about if people can also recharge their vehicles at home. Now is the time for politicians to finally set out their guidelines for enabling private recharging infrastructures to be developed in urban areas", said Axel Gedaschko, President of the GdW (Central Association of the Housing Industry).

"For the urgently needed turnaround in traffic, we need more recharging stations and, above all, electrical installations in buildings that can cope with the new requirements. The majority of these installations are now outdated so integrating recharging stations in them is often out of the question. Only if buildings and their traffic are electrified and digitalised can we create sector coupling and use energy more efficiently. Around half of the primary energy consumption could be saved just in the building sector. The traffic and building turnaround will finally gain momentum with solutions from the electrical and digital industry”, said Wolfgang Weber, chairman of the ZVEI executive board.

“Through their 50,000 companies, the electrical trades are actively supporting the ramping-up of e-mobility by contributing to expanding the recharging infrastructures. In order to spread e-mobility even further, there is an urgent need for more qualified specialists in addition to incentives for installing recharging points in larger residential complexes. Politics must simultaneously set the course for our skilled workers to be able to work more efficiently through reducing bureaucracy and digitising the processes related to the installations”, said Ingolf Jakobi, managing director of ZVEH, when referring to the corresponding list of demands.  

"A comprehensive and efficient recharging infrastructure is and remains the key to e-mobility success. This guide is an important component towards pressing ahead with expanding the recharging infrastructures. People who do not have their own garages or parking spaces in front of their house but live in apartment buildings will be in need of differentiated recharging infrastructure solutions. We expect to see a steadily increasing number of recharging processes in the future, especially in the private sector. I would also like to thank all of the colleagues who were involved in working on this paper", said Hildegard Müller, the president of VDA.

GdW, VDA, ZVEH and ZVEI all consider the following points to be the basic requirements for recharging infrastructures in apartment buildings if e-mobility is to actually achieve a breakthrough:

• the existing subsidy framework must be readjusted so that the electrical infrastructures in apartment buildings for generating and using renewable electricity, for tenant electricity in apartments as well as that needed for recharging e-vehicles provides proposals that go beyond the current legal framework.
• the generation and use of tenant electricity and recharging electricity must be revised.
• installing recharging points must become less of a bureaucratic process. Digital reporting procedures that are standardised across all grid operators can help here (as a platform).
• electricity companies need access to grid expansion plans/capacities for planning the recharging points (keyword: "grid cadaster"). 
• managing the recharging processes: customers should be able to organise recharging processes with the help of an autonomous energy management system that complies with the grid operator's specifications but meets their specific supply requirements. Clear, uniform specifications are also needed for working with energy management systems.  
• inclusive offers (parking spaces including electricity) must be made possible.
• the owner needs a right to an extended or second digital supply connection within an acceptable time frame.
• the construction procedures needed for expanding the infrastructures must be accelerated at all administrative levels, especially with regard to their approval processes.
• where political solutions appear uncertain on a larger scale, test areas will be needed so that practical testing of innovative concepts (out-of-the-box) can be carried out. This is why the regulations should be made permanent until the concepts have paid off.

The recharging infrastructure guide can be downloaded from here (in German language):

Den Leitfaden Ladeinfrastruktur Umfeldmaßnahmen können Sie hier herunterladen

About GdW:

GdW is the largest German industrial umbrella organisation and it represents around 3,000 municipal, cooperative, church, private, state and federally owned housing companies nationwide and at European level. Between them they manage around 6 million apartments in which more than 13 million people live. This means that GdW represents housing companies that manage almost 30 percent of all rented apartments in Germany.

GdW press contact:
Andreas Schichel
Press spokesman & Press office manager
Tel.: +49 30 82403-150
E-mail: schichel@gdw.de
Internet: www.gdw.de

About ZVEH:

ZVEH represents the interests of 49,592 companies from the three sectors electrical engineering, IT and mechanical engineering. With 518,176 employees, a number that include 45,284 apprentices, the companies generate an annual turnover of 72.2 billion euros. ZVEH, being a federal guild association, has twelve state associations with 313 guilds.

ZVEH press contact:
Maren Cornils
Press officer
Tel.: +49 69 247747-28
E-mail: M.Cornils@zveh.de
Internet: www.zveh.de

 

About ZVEI:

ZVEI represents the common interests of the electrical and digital industry as well as the associated service companies in Germany and at international level. The industry has around 877,000 employees in Germany. Its turnover in 2021 was nearly 200 billion euros. Almost a quarter of all private R&D expenditure in Germany comes from the electrical industry. Every year, the industry spends around 20 billion euros on R&D and more than six billion euros on investments. One third of the industry's turnover is accounted for by product innovations. Every third innovation in the entire manufacturing industry receives its original impetus from the electrical industry.

ZVEI press contact:
Ingrid Pilgram
Senior PR & Communications manager
Tel.: +49 69 6302-259
E-mail: Ingrid.Pilgram@zvei.org    
Internet: www.zvei.org

 

About VDA:

VDA is working for e-mobility, modern drive systems, implementing climate targets, digitisation, modern mobility and technology, German engineering and the more than two million jobs that depend on the automotive industry from which families and regions live. The entire German automotive industry is gathered under our roof: Manufacturers of passenger cars and commercial vehicles, suppliers as well as manufacturers of trailers, bodies and buses and providers of digital services such as ride-sharing and ride-pooling. VDA is the organiser of the international IAA Mobility and IAA Transportation mobility platforms.

VDA press contact:
Simon Schütz
Press office manager
Tel.: +49 160 95900967
E-Mail: simon.schuetz@vda.de
Internet: www.vda.de