Bulgaria plans to expand its EV charging network over the next five years

Bulgaria’s grid operator, Electricity System Operator (ESO), has signed a cooperation agreement with a group of organisations to install 10,000 charging points for electric vehicles (EVs) over the next five years. The agreement will see the charging points powered by renewable sources and distributed nationwide.

The initiative is part of an agreement signed between ESO and a group of stakeholders including the association of Bulgarian municipalities, the Bulgarian Branch Chamber of Power Engineers (BBCE), the Bulgarian Electric Vehicles Association (BAEPS), the Electric Vehicles Industrial Cluster Elektromobili (IKEM) and the Electric Vehicle Owners Association in Bulgaria (ASEB).

Under the agreement, ESO’s 297 substations across Bulgaria will provide sufficient power supply for the new EV charging stations. There will be both slow and fast EV charging points, which would serve electric cars as well as electric buses and other heavy-duty vehicles.

The Bulgarian Energy and Mining Forum, a non-governmental organization, said that ESO's experts forecast that Bulgaria will have 200,000 electric vehicles by 2030, with a combined annual power consumption of 600,000 MWh. This number could potentially increase to 3.5 million by 2050, with the respective total power demand rising to 10 million MWh per year. ESO also forecasts that annual energy consumption of all road vehicles in Bulgaria, currently at 45 TWh, would become three times lower by 2050 due to the massive deployment of electric vehicles.

The partners will collaborate under the agreement to identify the current state of the infrastructure and the need for charging points, in terms of both their location and capacity, as well as undertake the financial appraisal of the required infrastructure resources. With this new initiative, Bulgaria intends to promote the utilisation of renewable energy and zero emission transport, even in settlements located far from the main roads.

Original article published by Balkan Green Energy News on 15 March 2022.