The French government has announced new funding for the roll-out of electric vehicle charging points to match the development pace set by the EU’s new alternative fuel infrastructure regulation.

France aims to have over 400,000 electric vehicle charging points on its road network by 2030, including 50,000 fast charging points. Today, the public network has more than 110,000 charging points, making France the second best-equipped country in Europe, behind the Netherlands and ahead of Germany.

Three thousand charging points were installed every month last year, 15% of which are high-power chargers. Taking into account charging points installed in private homes and businesses, the number of charging points in France currently stands at 1.7 million.

But France needs to speed up its deployment because of new EU targets passed in July with the adoption of the European alternative fuels infrastructure regulation (AFIR). According to the new EU regulation, a fast-charging station must be installed on the EU’s main transport corridors every 60 km by the end of 2025 and on half of the network for heavy-duty vehicles by the end of 2027. In addition, the cumulative power of publicly accessible charging points must be at least 1.3 kW per electric vehicle and 0.8 kW per plug-in hybrid.

To this end, the government unveiled new measures to deploy charging stations, with an additional investment of €200 million over the period 2024-2027 – on top of the €320 million already allocated for 2016-2023. In addition, the ministry announced a further €68 million in aid for the development of fast and ultra-fast charging stations (with a capacity of more than 50 kW) and an increase in the tax credit for home charging points from €300 to €500 per station.

However, at the current rate of deployments, the network “will soon be insufficient”, warned Sébastien Jumel, director at Enedis, the French electricity distribution network operator. “There is, therefore, a huge load management problem,” notes the Enedis expert.

With this in mind, French Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher insists on developing a bidirectional “vehicle-to-grid” charging system to ensure electric vehicles can send electricity back to the grid when needed. Germany is “way ahead” in this respect, admits Pannier-Runacher, who believes the answer also lies in developing lighter, more affordable, less complex vehicles.