ČEZ Becomes the First Company in the Czech Republic to Put Its 1,000th Electric Vehicle Charging Station into Operation

The Czech energy group continues to push ahead with the expansion of high-performance charging hubs: ČEZ has opened its 1,000th charging station at the Portin retail park in Tuchoměřice.

The energy group ČEZ has officially put its 1,000th electric vehicle charging station into operation as the first company in the Czech Republic. The milestone station is part of a large charging hub at the Portin retail park in Tuchoměřice in Central Bohemia, close to Prague Airport. A total of nine ultra-fast charging points are available to drivers at the site.

The expansion of high-performance charging points will remain a key focus in the coming months. Already, one in five ČEZ charging stations is ultra-fast, and this share is set to rise to more than 30 per cent later this year. The network expansion is financed both from funds under the Operational Programme Transport and through ČEZ Group’s own investments.

Foto: ČEZ

Almost 15 years lie between the commissioning of the first and the 1,000th charging station. The first ČEZ charging point went into operation on 30 November 2011 at the company’s headquarters on Duhová Street in Prague. While charging at that time took several hours, modern installations can now charge a large part of a vehicle’s battery within around 15 minutes. The pace of expansion has also accelerated significantly: whereas the first 100 stations were built over a period of more than six years, ČEZ now installs 100 charging points within five months.

According to Pavel Cyrani, Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of ČEZ, the company is pursuing ambitious targets for the coming years as well. In addition to expanding the national charging infrastructure, the overall capacity of the network is to be further increased. By the end of this year, ČEZ plans to operate more than 1,250 charging points with a total capacity of almost 130 megawatts.

Last year, the network grew by 206 new stations, around a third of them offering ultra-fast charging capacities of between 150 and 360 kilowatts. The highest density of charging points is currently recorded in Central Bohemia, Prague, and the regions of Ústí, Moravian-Silesian and Hradec Králové.

In future, ČEZ will also continue to focus more strongly on larger charging hubs with several high-performance stations. The company currently operates around 40 such locations, with the number expected to rise by around a third by the end of the year.