The French fast charging company Electra will install fast chargers in the Netherlands. The company wants to have 100 locations with a total of 600 charging points by 2030. There are currently more than 4,000 fast charging points in the Netherlands.

Electra wants to open the first fast charging station later this year. The company does not yet want to say where and when. It does not rule out opening several locations this year, but indicates that in the first few years it will mainly be looking for new locations and signing lease agreements. Electra expects to open most of the 600 fast charging points in the last three years of this decade. 

Currently, there are 4,009 DC fast charging points in the Netherlands, reports a European Union information center, compared to 145,016 AC slow charging points. Louis-Charles Mosseray, CEO of Electra Netherlands, thinks there is room in the DC market, because fast charging points in the Netherlands are often located along the highway. “There is still plenty of room for us in urban areas. Especially if you look at who currently has an electric car in the Netherlands. These are often people who can charge at home and at the office. Many Dutch people cannot do that, because they live in an apartment and do not have their own parking space. They will also soon have to buy an electric car and it will then be less easy for them to use AC slow charging. We therefore think that DC fast charging will then be more necessary.”

Electra currently operates in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Spain, across which it had 170+ charging stations by the end of last year, and boasts nearly 1,000 charging points. It aims to reach 15,000 fast charging points across 2,200 stations by 2030.

In January, Electra raised 304 million euros — what it says was the largest in France and second largest in Europe in the charging sector — led by a new investor, PGGM, a Dutch pension fund service provider. French climate bank Bpifrance also entered into Electra in the round, while historical French investors including private equity house Eurazeo, investment firms Rive Private Investment and Serena, and the investment arm of infrastructure group SNCF continued to participate.