EESL gets first electric vehicle from MG Motor to be used by govt officials

State-owned Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) on Monday got delivery of the first ZS EV of MG Motor India.

EESL placed the order for 5 MG ZS EVs that will be used by government officials to further the cause of electric vehicles (EVs) as part of its National E-Mobility Programme, according to a statement.

This procurement by EESL is driven by the objective of facilitating faster adoption of disruptive solutions while balancing economic development and environmental sustainability, the statement.

With this initiative, EESL seeks to create a market for electric vehicles through its unique business model of aggregation of demand and bulk procurement.

EESL is seeking to leverage the immense potential of replacement of existing vehicles in the government departments for initial demand aggregation.

Saurabh Kumar, managing director, EESL, said in the statement: "India stands at the cusp of a new era that will be driven by sustainability. EV adoption is the future of mobility and will play a huge role in curbing the growing pollution crisis, as well as reduce the country's dependence on fossil fuels."

Commenting on the showcase of the ZS EV, Rajeev Chaba, president and managing director, MG Motor India, said: "Through several progressive measures such as the launch of FAME-II and BS-VI standards, the Indian government has been making major efforts to promote cleaner technologies in the country."

The Government of India launched the National E-Mobility Programme to provide an impetus to the entire e-mobility ecosystem including vehicle manufacturers, charging infrastructure companies, fleet operators, and service providers.
EESL is aggregating demand by procuring electric vehicles in bulk to leverage economies of scale. Till date, a total of 1,510 e-cars have been deployed and another 500 are under registration.

Energy Efficiency Services Ltd has signed agreements with various public sector undertakings, government departments, and state governments of Delhi, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Gujarat, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and others for deploying e-cars.

EESL inks pact with HPCL to set up EV battery charging infrastructure

State-owned Energy Efficiency Services on Monday said it has signed memorandum of understanding with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation for setting up charging infrastructure to boost electric mobility.

As a part of the national electric mobility programme, Energy Efficiency Services (EESL), a joint venture of four national public sector enterprises under the Ministry of Power, and HPCL have entered into a two-year MoU to set up public charging infrastructure across the country, the company said in a statement.

The MoU covers collaboration for planning, development and installation of charging facilities at suitable locations for two, three, and four-wheeler vehicles.

"With the installation of public charging stations, the range anxiety of EV owners is expected to reduce, which will increase the adoption of electric mobility. This will also bring down automobiles emissions, enabling cleaner and greener environment, in turn, safeguarding public from health risks," the company said.

Commenting on the partnership, EESL Managing Director Saurabh Kumar said that this tie-up will address the range anxiety concerns that EV-adopters may have.

"Increased access to charging infrastructure is vital for the uptake of electric mobility across the entire EV ecosystem of two, three, and four-wheelers. Our partnership with HPCL will also establish more visibility of charging infrastructure, sending a signal to the general public that India's electric mobility vision is being realised in full potential," he added.

EESL crosses one crore LED streetlights mark, next stop villages

The first success story of retrofitting street lights with LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs emerged when the Hudhud cyclone hit the east coast of India in 2017. Seven districts in Andhra Pradesh were retrofitted with 1 million LED street lights, accruing a benefit of Rs 82 crore annually on the state's power bill. Since then, LED street lighting has caught on in the country, providing monetary benefit and safer roads.

At the forefront of the LED installation programmes across the country is the state-owned Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) which carried out its first retrofitting programme in 2014 for Pondicherry. In the five years since, it has installed 10 million LED street lights across the country. The scheme has covered almost all states of the country covering 270,000 km of roads in India, EESL claims.

“The installation of 10million LED street lights has resulted in annual energy savings of 6.71 billion kWh (kilowatt hour), resulting in cost savings of approximately Rs 5,570 crore annually,” Saurabh Kumar, managing director, EESL told this paper. The company itself saved a total of Rs 900 crore during last financial year from the scheme, which it expects to grow to Rs 1,400 crore in the current fiscal.

To ensure the programme runs successfully, EESL trained the the maintenance staff of municipalities and also created occupational standards by joining hands with the National Skill Development Corporation.

Among private companies, Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL) executed ‘Street Light Project’ of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) last year for the 104 wards of North Delhi Municipal Corporation area. It converted 85,000 street light points to LED lights and replaced more than 135,000 lights with LED, leading to saving of close to 85 MW (mega watt) of power demand load.

Furthermore, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal last week announced the 'Mukhyamantri Street Light Yojana' under which over two lakh street lights would be installed in the city. “There are many dark spots in different parts of Delhi, where women are unsafe. We will identify such dark spots and install 200,000 street lights so that women feel safe in the city,” Kejriwal said in a public statement.

Even then, street light installation still face challenges. Poor electrical infrastructure is the prime concern. In some cases, there are no dedicated street light infrastructure with more than 80 per cent lights installed on poles meant for transmission of power.

In the next phase of its street lightning program, EESL will focus on gram panchayats. The number of lights required in lighting villages is estimated at 3.5 crore, EESL said. The company is also planning to convert all street lights in the country to LED.

EESL to set up 1,000 EV charging stations, hopes to deploy 5,000 cars

State-run Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), which was tasked with procuring 10,000 electric cars for government use, has said that it could procure and deploy only 1,500 cars largely because of the lack of charging stations. The company now plans to address this issue by setting up nearly 1,000 charging stations, and is confident of deploying around 5,000 cars for various government departments by next year.

EESL, a joint venture of state-owned firms under the power ministry, has finished the procurement process of 10,000 e-cars under the national e-mobility programme that was launched by the Centre in March 2018, although it hasn’t taken delivery or paid for the cars. That was to be done against demand from government departments to which these vehicles were to be provided on lease or on outright purchase, to replace their existing fleet of petrol and diesel vehicles.

S P Garnaik, chief general manager (technical) EESL, who was in Chennai to launch the Super-Efficient Air Conditioner Programme, said that till now the company has procured and deployed 1,500 cars. Poor demand for the vehicles stems from lack of charging infrastructure and the fact that there is no mandate from the Government that Departments must procure electric vehicles.

Garnaik ruled out any problems in the cars supplied by Tata and Mahindra, the two companies which bagged order to supply 10,000 vehicles.

EESL is planning to set up nearly 1,000 charging stations across the country and the Center has asked the Tamil Nadu government to come out with electric mobility adoption plans. "Both these will push the demand by next year, and we would deploy at least 5,000 EV cars across the country," he said.

As per the Letter of Award (LoA) issued in October 2017 (for 400 e-cars) and February 2018 (for 9,600 e-cars), the vehicles were to be supplied by November 2017 and January 2019 respectively. The cars cost Rs about Rs 10 lakh currently.

The government has been aggressively pushing for a switch to electric vehicles to curb pollution in cities and also to reduce India’s fuel import bill. The country, which is currently the world’s third-largest oil importer, aims to become a global manufacturing hub for EVs.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council reduced the tax rate on electric vehicles (EVs) to 5 per cent from 12 per cent.

The government's think tank NITI Aayog’s earlier proposed to ban production of conventional two-wheelers under 150cc by 2025 and three-wheelers by 2023.

While this has created lot of confusion and debate, later, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said the government has no specific deadline in mind for automakers to switch to electric mobility or ban production of petrol and diesel vehicles.