The state of EV Charging in India
On economics of charging at home, challenges to city grids and power theft
India is among a handful of countries that support the global EV30@30 campaign, which targets to have at least 30% new vehicle sales be electric by 2030.
“ Even Makemytrip cab rides from the airport now have Blusmart EV rides as the most economical option! ”
If you look at Delhi alone, there are 60,000+ EVs registered in Delhi. This figure is expected to grow to more than 200,000 EV registrations per year by 2030.
The tricky of scaling EVs in the country is the effect it’ll have on the electric grid. Specially because most people charge them during the nights/afternoon times where you already have a high electricity consumption.
The government’s target (Charging Infrastructure Guidelines and Standards, the Ministry of Power (MoP)) is an immensely challenging one of installing almost 3,000 charging stations in major cities and at intervals of 25 kms on major highways. Even the highest-income neighbourhoods of Delhi have to contend with electricity cuts, let alone rural and lower-income areas.
Taking a case study of Delhi:
Now, how would you charge your EVs? You have 3 options to do so:
Another option that’s coming in the market is battery swapping, but due to the challenges given below, it’s in the initial stages of implementation.
If you look at the market trend since most EV owners are affluent, due to convenience and cost, people prefer charging EVs at their homes. Even in the US, where the ecosystem has developed, it’s the same case.
If we dig a level deeper, as an EV owner who wants to charge at home, you can either take a separate domestic connection, or you can use the existing metered connection. Let’s take a quick look at the economics of two choices.
Should you take up a separate domestic connection or use your existing metered connection?
Suppose we have a family in Delhi looking to purchase a electric 4 wheeler with capacity of 45 kWh.
Let’s take average monthly electricity consumption of 380 units/mo. For an average house, sanctioned load can meet additional load of 3 kW.
If we look at monthly energy charges (₹/kWh) based on monthly consumption slabs in Delhi:
As per requirement, EV needs to be charged every 5 days, from 20% to 100%.
Monthly consumption comes out to be 216 units.
Option 1: Using existing domestic connection
Total Average Electricity consumption comes out to be 596 units (380 + 216)
Based on the tariffs, monthly energy charge is estimated to be ₹2774 per month:
Option 2: Using a dedicated metered connection
Delhi’s EV tariff has an energy charge of ₹4.50 per unit and no demand charge.
Total Energy Cost is ₹972.
Hence, the total monthly energy charge for the family is ₹2382.
At this level of EV utilisation, it makes more economic sense for families to have a separate metered connection.
But in a diverse country like India, there are bound to be other challenges. One of the most rampant one is power theft.
The case of power theft
The Indian power sector loses more than $16 billion a year to theft - more than any other country in the world.
Power stolen to charge three-wheeler rickshaws costs more than $20 million a year in Delhi alone. There are 100,000 such vehicles on the capital’s roads, and only a quarter are registered.
As per estimates there are over one lakh e-rickshaws plying on the city roads and only one-fourth of them are registered, despite a subsidy scheme of the government.
On an average, an e-rickshaw consumes around 7-10 units per day. This comes to about 2,500-3,600 units per e-rickshaw per annum. Power theft is at its peak at night due to bulk charging at facilities set up by the rackets, discom sources said. The e-rickshaw owners pay fixed money in the range of Rs 100 to 150 per day to the 'parking and charging' mafia.
To solve this, the government is trying to strengthen the registration process of EV charging stations & the vehicles, but this will continue to be an area which will take around 5-10 years to stabilise because power theft is a deeply ingrained problem.
Below are some bonus resources in case you want to go deeper.
Resources:
https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/how-to-siting-ev-charging-stations-indian-cities-report.pdf
[BONUS] Tech Innovations happening in EV charging:
Detect faults and lateral misalignment in wireless charging of EVs
Also, in-vehicle sensors and communication data are increasingly becoming available and offer an opportunity to understand travel and charging behavior of EV owners, which can for example inform the placement of charging stations or alternatives such as battery swapping stations.