India to have own EV charging norms

BIS AND DST WORKING ON LOCAL CHARGING STANDARD THAT WILL HELP REDUCE COST OF ESTABLISHING EV CHARGING STATIONS

In a first, India plans to come up with its own standards for charging stations for its emerging electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem.

To start with, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) are working on an indigenous charging standard that will also help reduce the cost of establishing charging stations for EVs in the country.

There are currently three acceptable global standards Japanese, Chinese and European. A pan-India EV charging grid holds the key to the success story of EV’s in the country, as lack of charging stations is proving to be the biggest hurdle to adoption of electric mobility.

Currently, companies who set up charging stations in India need to buy the license from the authorities, either in Japan, China or others, which makes the whole process of establishing the charging station significantly expensive.

The government is pushing auto makers to develop electric vehicles and their parts locally to avail incentives under the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric (FAME) and Hybrid vehicles scheme.

Now, the government also wants to reduce the cost of setting up charging stations which may prove to be the biggest push the industry needs.

According to the minutes of a April 29 meeting of a joint working group formed by officials in the BIS and DST, the Indian Standards, would facilitate the activities of the government under the FAME-scheme by Department of Heavy Industries and the Phased Manufacturing Programme by NITI Aayog.

“Establishing charging stations in India is very expensive at the moment as one needs to pay for the license, if there is a particular standard for India, then the cost will drastically come down. BIS and DST have been given the mandate to develop the standards and hope they will come with something significant in the near future,” said a person aware of the development.

According to the minutes of the meeting mentioned above, the standards under development will cater to three types of electric vehicles—light, medium and heavy.

“The planned rollout of twowheeled personal transport and a variety of public transport electric vehicles represent distinct use cases, and the BIS will develop standards for charging systems for these EVs also,” the documents show.

The government has already earmarked ₹1,000 crore towards setting up charging stations under the FAME scheme.

It has also proposed to provide one slow-charging unit for every electric bus and one fast-charging station for ten electric buses.