Avere France has just published its latest monthly barometer for May 2024 on charging infrastructures open to the public. If the number of terminals continues to increase, their reliability remains worrying. For good reason, no less than 25% of fast charging stations were unavailable last month.
Since 2021, Avere France, in partnership with the Ministry of Ecological Transition, publishes each month its barometer of charging infrastructures open to the public. These reports, produced by the electromobility expert Gireve, make it possible to obtain indicators “robust and transparent” on user uses and the situation of the French fleet.
Thanks to these documents, we can above all take stock of the total number of charging points available in France, the distribution of terminals according to their power or even the availability rate. Concerning the first point, France continues its good momentum. After reaching the symbolic milestone of 100,000 terminals before the summer of 2023, we were counting on April 30, 2024 129,525 operational terminals in our country.
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More and more terminals in France
Since the beginning of the year, 2,510 new stations opened, or 11,516 additional charging points open to the public. We owe this great dynamic to the multiple installations in retail parking lots. For good reason, in one year, we went from 39,116 terminals to 55,304 in front of Carrefour, Auchan, Leclerc or even McDonald’s and Lidl. “The current pace of deployments is compatible with this trajectory,” assures the general delegate of Avere-France, who refers here to the French objective to reach 400,000 active terminals by 2030.
Another good point, the number of fast charging stations continued to increase in one year. Thus, the share of terminals over 50 kWh increased from 11% to 14%. The number of DC terminals over 150 kWh has also increased considerably to approach the 11,000 in 2024compared to around 6,500 last year.
A worrying availability rate, especially at fast terminals
Where the problem lies, however, is infrastructure reliability. In March 2024, we were already discussing this issue in our columns, namely that of the disappointing average rate of infrastructure availability. As Avere France reminds us, a charging point is considered available “if is neither under maintenance nor out of service”.
It is worrying to note that progress is still awaited on this point. For good reason, in April 2024, only 74% of terminals over 150 kWh installed in France were operational. By extension, this means that the remaining 26% were unavailable! The situation is not much better regarding direct current terminals of less than 150 kWh, with an average availability rate of 75%. We are also witnessing a deterioration of the situation if we compare with the data recorded in April 2023. Indeed, DC terminals of less than 150 kWh then displayed an 84% average availability rate, and 77% for those of more than 150 kWh.
How can we explain this deterioration in terminal reliability?
But how can we explain this deterioration? As explained by Nathan Dubois-Sora, director of international development at Dream Energy in the columns of Caradisiac, operators are not necessarily the only ones responsible: “there are multiple players involved in the proper functioning of charging stations and their coordination remains complex in absolute terms. It may happen that work carried out by third-party companies in the vicinity of these terminals disrupts charging activity. I have the example of work carried out by a large company in an area where one of our charging stations was located, where the terminals were temporarily deactivated due to these activities”.
According to him, it is imperative that operators also put in place efficient and responsive maintenance teams. Network managers should also educate users about responsible use charging infrastructure. Indeed, it sometimes happens that users’ lack of knowledge, particularly about their own vehicles, causes certain problems when recharging. “For example, we have calls from customers who cannot unplug their car. In these cases, the problem lies with the vehicle in question and the procedures required to unlock the socket but not with the terminal itself. he explains. &