DCC Energy invests early as electric vehicle numbers grow in France.
An artist impression of a Certas Engie EV charging station in France.
DCC Energy and ENGIE Solutions have established an investment partnership to jointly build and operate a network of electric vehicle superchargers at Certas motorway service stations (operated under the Esso brand) in France. The company, controlled by Certas France, will make an initial investment of around €10 million for a first phase of deployment of the network of electric vehicle charging stations.
Benefiting from both Certas Energy France and ENGIE Solutions’ expertise in the deployment and operation of decentralised energy infrastructure, the company will deploy up to 71 super-chargers on 16 motorway service stations operated by Certas across all three major motorway networks in France. For Certas Energy France, this is the most important energy transition initiative to date. It builds on the roll-out of lower emissions fuels including E85 that we have made available on 59 of our company-owned sites in France.
DCC started its selective EV charging roll out in Norway, which has the highest share of passenger cars with a battery in Europe. We now have 29 sites with charging capability in Norway.
The captive motorway network in France provides the next best expected returns for us. Hence the partnership with ENGIE. In total, DCC Energy had 64 sites with 273 chargers across out network of more than 1150 owned or leased sites at end of' September 2022 - up by nine in six months.