Parking at Ignitis electric car charging stations will be expensive in Vilnius: who needs it? | Business

Such an opportunity will arise because Ignitis ON, the largest electric car fast charging network in Lithuania managed by the Ignitis company, will start a pilot project, which is expected to free up the most popular charging accesses faster and allow a larger number of electric car drivers to use them conveniently.

The charging station is not a parking lot

“The station is not a parking lot”, with this message “Ignitis ON” announces that at the most popular electric car charging stations in Vilnius, such as Tymo market, Rūdininkai Square, Marriage Palace, Halė Market, Santaras Clinics, “Rimi” Žirmūnai, Green Hall, Užupis Square, Bernardinė Garden and Vingriau Square from May 1. the charging of the electric car charging service will change. After the first 90 minutes of the charging session, at fast charging access points (DC), each additional minute will be charged at EUR 0.10/min. – busy access fee.

Why should you pay 6 EUR per hour?

According to Eimantas Balta, head of the electric mobility department at Ignitis, the decision to test and introduce this, as the company calls it, the busy access fee, is primarily an effort to solve the problem of building charging accesses when the electric car has been charged for some time, but remained parked. And due to the lack of convenient charging accesses for now, it is hoped that this change will create a few more opportunities for a larger number of drivers to comfortably charge an electric car.

“The busy access fee appears in extremely popular areas of the capital, which receive a large flow of electric car drivers, to solve the problem when when you arrive at a fast charging access, it is not possible to charge an electric car, because the access is busy – there is another electric car that has been charged for several hours, but remained parked. As is known, according to the current technological capabilities, all electric cars in fast charging access can be fully charged in 60-90 minutes. Therefore, the busy access fee will help ensure greater availability of the fast charging service and a better customer experience”, commented E. Balta.

For the pilot project, the company chose the most popular, most convenient charging stations for electric car drivers, where during the last three months of last year, the number of charging sessions that lasted more than 3 hours was really expressive, for example, the charging station was turned into a parking lot almost every day for half a day.

For now, this pilot project is planned until August 1, after which the company will analyze the situation and make the best decision for users.

How many electric cars and Ignitis charging stations are there in Lithuania?

A total of 12,381 pure electric cars are currently registered in Lithuania.

Today, almost 400 “Ignitis ON” charging access points operate throughout Lithuania, 20 in Latvia, and the first charging access points will start operating in Estonia at the end of the year. Until 2026 Ignitis ON will install up to 3,000 electric car charging points in all Baltic countries.

“Ignitis ON” electric car charging points operating in Lithuania can be found in one “Ignitis ON” app.