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ESB EV Charging Infrastructure

ESB has invested €50m over the past 10 years plus in establishing and operating the public charging network. Since 2019, ESB has carried out a significant upgrade programme to expand and enhance the country’s EV charging network with the rollout of multi charging hubs, high-power chargers and the upgrade of standard AC chargers nationwide. 

ESB remains committed to offering the most competitive rates available and work hard to keep the cost of charging as low as possible.  We are committed to providing a reliable network and associated offerings including a 24/7 customer support line and real time charge point app. 

We recently announced a change in our pricing structure for our EV charging network for the Republic of Ireland, with this change coming into effect on December 20, 2022. Full details can be found here.

Unfortunately, the wholesale cost of electricity in Ireland, as well as in Europe, has dramatically soared to an unprecedented level over the past year. This increase in our electricity purchase costs means we are unable to continue to provide these services without having to increase the price of charging on the network.   

We expect this volatility in wholesale energy costs to continue over the coming months given the ongoing uncertainty in the geopolitical situation and international energy markets. That said, we continue to keep our prices under constant review, and we are committed to providing our customers with the best value possible will work hard to keep the cost of charging as low as possible.  

No. This is only an increase on the unit price of electricity. 

No, ESB is fully committed to the decarbonisation of transport and we have a very strong pipeline of new chargers and charging hubs across Ireland.  We want our pricing to be fair and attractive to customers who are making the change to clean transport. As such, we monitor our pricing on an ongoing basis to ensure it is as competitive as possible while also covering the cost of expanding and operating a national network on a 24/7/365 basis.    

With wholesale energy costs soaring across Europe, we have been working hard to absorb the increases and avoid passing these additional costs to drivers. However, this increase is now unfortunately unavoidable.  

Based on our ongoing liaison with EV drivers, we expect most people to continue doing most of their charging at home where it is the cheapest and most convenient to do so.  

The increasing driving range of electric vehicles coming to the market will also change the use of public charging. We are already seeing a more “layered” choice of EV charging options evolve including charging at home, at work, at destinations such as supermarkets and hotels, while the Government has also provided funding to enable more local authorities to install EV chargers.   

ESB qualified for €10m in funding from the Climate Action Fund which ESB has matched with a further €10m investment. This funding has been specifically allocated to allow ESB to undertake a comprehensive programme to expand and enhance the public charging network across Ireland, to help meet the expected growth of electric vehicles in the coming years.   

There are three different parts to the project, which are:  

  • Over 50 charging “hubs” throughout Ireland which can charge between 3-8 vehicles simultaneously. 

  • The replacement of 50 Standard (AC) chargers with Fast (DC) chargers  

  • The replacement of over 200 unreliable Standard (AC) chargers  

 These projects will expand and enhance the public charging network across Ireland in the coming years, which is crucial to achieving Ireland's climate and energy targets in a cost-effective manner and is unrelated to this announcement.