Charging station experiences and advice for meeting venues and hotels

The number of business trips is growing. CBS arrives at 1.4 million business overnight trips in April 2022, figures that are heading towards April 2019's 1.9 million. Of course, that also means more travel. And that is increasingly happening electrically.

There are now more than a quarter of a million all-electric cars on the road. The drivers of those cars are therefore entirely dependent on electric charging stations. The number of public charging stations is growing rapidly, but that growth lags far behind the increase in the number of electric cars.

Obligation

Providing charging stations therefore seems like a worthwhile investment for a meeting venue or hotel. Indeed, it is already mandatory to have charging station spots in new construction or renovation, and from 2025, this obligation will apply to all venues.

The charging station experiences of BCN and ENGIE's charging station advice give you the answers if you want to get started with charging stations. You can find even more information on the Practical Sustainability Notice Board on electric charge posts.

How many charging stations?

How many charging poles a location should or can take depends on 3 things:

1. The number of parking spaces available. Spots with a charging station or charging point take up a bit more space than a regular parking spot. And those spots are then, of course, no longer available to petrol drivers. Boudewijn Boeve of ENGIE says that to determine this, they visit the location to be able to give personal advice.
2. The legal obligation to provide charging stations. We already mentioned this in the introduction to this article.
3. The power the building can provide. In fact, this is the most important criterion of all. That power is limited. That is why capacity is always reserved for the building first. This ensures that everything on the site continues to run as normal. Whatever capacity is left over can then go to the charging stations. In principle, that power is then distributed over the number of charging points that are occupied, a principle also known as "smart charging".

We talk about charging points because charging posts can have multiple charging points. A charging station with two charging points can therefore charge two cars at the same time, says Boudewijn Boeve of ENGIE in a podcast with Worldmeetings. He also indicates in the podcast that the possibility exists to expand capacity, for example if the location is interested in fast chargers.

Which solution?

You can take charge posts in-house, or they can remain under the supplier's management. The latter is called the "operating model". You then have no investment costs, and the supplier pays you a fee for the electricity. If you manage them yourself, you do pay for the charging stations, but you are free to choose what you charge for the electricity.

If you have an enclosed car park, you cannot always opt for the operating solution. It is then considered whether there is sufficient traffic at the charging stations to justify the investment for the supplier. For BCN, this was a reason to opt for the management model.

Implementation

If you do not yet have charging poles, the first step is to dig so that pipes can be laid from the location of the charging poles to the power supply of your building. This takes 1 to 2 days. Extra "empty" cables are always laid, so that a number of additional charging stations can be added in the future. Guests will experience some inconvenience from this.

Costs and payback

If you choose the operating model, you have no investment costs. You will then receive compensation from the supplier for the electricity used. For charge points under its own management, ENGIE gives a price indication of €4,000 per charge point with 2 charge points. So that's €2,000 per charge point. BCN quoted a price of around €10,000 for 4 charging posts including excavation work. Due to more excavation work, the price for the Rotterdam site was higher than the Utrecht site. For that price, there were also 2 "empty pipes" on which they will now install new charging posts. The separate charging poles cost them €1,500 each. Rianne Adelaar (BCN) says they charge 41 cents per kWh, which means they will recoup the investment costs in 5 years. Boudewijn Boeve (ENGIE) says in a podcast with Worldmeetings that he takes into account a payback period of 7 years.