More electric recharging points to be set up under EU alternative fuels initiative

About 2500 electric recharging points for cars, vans and small trucks will be installed across Europe thanks to an EU alternative fuels initiative, the European Commission (EC) said on February 7.

The EU is allocating nearly 422 million euro to 39 projects that will deploy alternative fuels supply infrastructure along the trans-European transport network (TEN-T), contributing to decarbonisation.

These projects have been selected under the first cut-off deadline of the 2024-2025 Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Facility (AFIF) of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the EU funding programme supporting European transport infrastructure.

With this selection, the AFIF will support about 2500 electric recharging points for light-duty vehicles and 2400 for heavy-duty vehicles along the European TEN-T road network, 35 hydrogen refuelling stations for cars, trucks and buses, the electrification of ground handling services in eight airports, the greening of nine ports and two ammonia and methanol bunkering facilities.

Following EU member states’ approval of the selected projects on February 4 2025, the EC will adopt the award decision in the coming months, after which the results will become definitive.

The European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) has started the preparation of the grant agreements with the beneficiaries of successful projects.

The second phase of the AFIF (2024-2025) was launched on February 29 2024 with a total budget of a billion euro: 780 million euro under the general envelope and 220 million euro under the cohesion envelope.

The call for proposals covers the roll-out of alternative fuels supply infrastructure for road, maritime, inland waterway and air transport. It supports recharging stations, hydrogen refuelling stations, electricity supply and ammonia and methanol bunkering facilities.

The call remains open for applications and the next cut-off deadline is June 11 2025, the EC said.

(Photo: Karlis Dambrans)