The Swedish energy company Vattenfall wants to invest heavily in the expansion of charging stations in Germany. It said it will spend half a billion euros over the next five years on expanding the charging infrastructure in Germany by 2028.

 Vattenfall wants to invest 150 million euros per year in the Swedish, Dutch and German market combined, two thirds of which are in Germany. The focus should be on expanding charging stations for so-called location partners, who only provide space but do not invest in infrastructure or operations themselves. These are, for example, supermarkets, parking garages or hotels, said Tim Gansczyk, managing director of Vattenfall’s German e-mobility division. The group operates a total of around 52,000 charging points in the three named countries; Germany is by far the smallest market with a good 2,000 charging points (Netherlands: 30,000, Sweden: 20,000).

“Based on our experience in Scandinavia and the Netherlands, we are now intensively tackling the German market,” said Hagmann. In addition to destination charging, the B2B area is to be expanded with partners. Vattenfall has major customers under contract in Germany, such as Lufthansa, Coca-Cola and housing companies. More are now to follow.

Vattenfall offers private charging solutions via wallboxes in combination with its electricity tariffs in another business area. When it comes to charging infrastructure on motorways or on the side of roads, Hagmann said, Vattenfall “will consciously hold back”.

Vattenfall believes that setting up and operating charging infrastructure is a worthwhile business. “But that doesn’t pay off in two or three years, but in ten or 20 years,” said Hagmann. Regardless of the current lull in the number of registrations of electric cars, Vattenfall expects the trend to be clearly upwards in the medium to long term. “The German market is lagging behind internationally, but it will grow by 20 to 30 percent every year in the future,” estimates Hagmann.