The government of New Zealand has committed to doubling the number of public EV chargers around the country with zero-interest loans.
The government has partnered with chargepoint operator ChargeNet and state-owned energy company Meridian Energy for the deployment of the chargers.
The zero-interest loans will total NZ$52.7 million (US$30.4 million), transport minister Chris Bishop and energy & climate change minister Simon Watts announced today (23 March).
Both companies were selected through a contestable, value-for-money bid process, and will be investing a combined NZ$60 million of their own capital alongside the loans.
“Many New Zealanders have thought about getting an EV, even before the fuel challenges we’re currently facing. But research shows that the lack of public chargers is holding many back from making the switch to an EV,” Mr Bishop says.
The scheme is to get around the chicken-and-egg scenario for private investors around EV charging supply and demand. Private investors won’t fund the buildout of charging until demand grows, but demand won’t grow while there isn’t the charging. The government did something similar with the ultrafast broadband network.
The average loan per EV charger will be NZ$20,000, at a net cost to the government of NZ$10,000 per loan. They will fund up to half of the installation cost and have a tenure of 13 years.
The 2,574 new charge points include 1,374 DC fast chargers and 1,200 AC chargers, and around half will be spread across Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, the Wellington region, Christchurch, and Dunedin.
The scheme hopes to bring the country’s public chargepoints to 4,550, part of a goal to hit 10,000 by 2030.
The government is also changing planning rules to make public EV chargers a permitted activity under the Resource Management Act (RMA).
The loans will be administered by the National Infrastructure Funding and Financing (NIFFCo).
New Zealand recently reached 100,000 new battery electric and plug-in hybrid EVs, as reported by EV Infrastructure News.