How the RCN will grow

Funded by the European Union’s Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) programme, the project covers over 1,100km of major UK and Irish roads which also link with five major ports and five international airports.

Each activity will be documented and the results will be made available with towns, cities and countries across Europe to support the development of similar EV charging networks.

The Rapid Charge Network project was launched in October 2013 by Sim Kallas, Vice President of the European Commission at the Ten-T Days event in Tallinn, Estonia. The Rapid Charge Network project aims to support the European Union towards their goal for the decarbonisation of transport and contribute to the target of a 60% reduction of CO2 emissions from transport by 2050. The project has a total budget of €7.3 million and will be 50% funded by the European Union with €3.6 million.

The project will assess the creation, use and business feasibility of a transnational, multi-standard, interoperable network of EV rapid charge points. The end result of the project will be a strategy which will be shared with other EU towns, cities and countries.

The four objectives of the project are:

• To develop a comprehensive strategy with a detailed roadmap, appropriate guidelines and recommendations for the development of a multi-standard interoperable EV rapid charging network. A detailed study will be undertaken which will include market, technical and regulatory assessments and lessons learnt from the project.
• To establish a pilot network of multi-standard rapid chargers along the European Union’s Priority Projects road axes 13 and 26.
• Test, operate and monitor the use of this pilot network of rapid charge points. This will explore cross-border solutions which meets the needs of both drivers and charge point operators. This will deliver valuable insights into the feasibility of business models for transnational, multi-standard rapid charger networks.
• To disseminate the findings of the study widely locally, nationally and across Europe.

The Rapid Charge Network project is co-financed by the European Union:

Total project cost covered by the related European Commission Decision: €7,358,000

Percentage of EU support: 50%

Max EU contribution: €3,679,000

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