St1 seeks €4.38m EU fund for building EV fast-charging machines

Finnish energy company St1 applied for EUR 4.38 million in financial support from the EU for building fast-charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, said the Ministry of Transport and Communications in a press release.

St1 applies for the funding together with the Swedish St1 Sverige AB. The joint project is coordinated by St1 Nordic.

The companies apply for funding for a Finnish-Swedish project to build a charging network for electric vehicles from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) of the EU.

The total costs of the project will be EUR 25.87 million. The amount of investments to be made in Finland will be EUR 12.7 million.

In Finland the charging points would be placed along the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). The funding Finland applies for would be used to build a total of 33 charging stations with 186 charging points for passenger cars.

The funding is applied for under the call for proposals of the CEF Transport Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Facility.

The EU provides funding e.g. for building distribution infrastructure for electricity and gas, thus contributing to decarbonising transport along the TEN-T network.

The new EU Regulation on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure means stricter requirements for the transport fuels infrastructure.

According to the proposal for a Regulation on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure (AFIR) issued by the European Commission in July 2021, the Member States must make sure that drivers have access to a certain minimum number of public charging points.

For example, along the TEN-T core network there should be a charging station for electric passenger cars at least every 60 kilometres by 2025.

The proposal is still being discussed within the EU, which means that its content may change. The coverage of the charging infrastructure is quite good in Finland, but the project to build new charging stations would make it easier for Finland to achieve its future targets.

The deadline of this call for applications of the European Commission is 10 November 2022. The next deadline for applications concerning alternative fuels infrastructure is 13 April 2023 and the last, i.e. fifth, cut-off date for the submission of proposals is 19 September 2023.