ELDRIVE - CHARGING STATION NETWORK (IEU GT)

The project concerns will finance the deployment of 10,574 electric vehicle charging (EVC) stations in Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania and Latvia.

The aim is to speed up the electrification of road transport in Europe, by providing EVC infrastructure and making EV stations widely and easily available, thus contribute to fight climate change and air pollution. The project also supports a wide range of EU policies and contributes to achieve EU decarbonisation objectives. Specifically, it contributes to the EU Green Deal objective to reach one million public EV chargers and alternative fuel refuelling stations in the EU by 2025. It also supports the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy target of one million EV public recharging points in the EU by 2025 and 3 million by 2030.

The Project concerns the deployment of EV charging infrastructure in Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania and Latvia, which have very low baselines in the electric mobility field. In line with EU and EIB objectives of sustainable transport and decarbonisation, the Project helps to mitigate market failures in transport by financing EV charging infrastructure, which generates environmental benefits as well as wider benefits in EV adoption and commercialisation of EV charging operations in Europe. The Project's most important economic benefit is that it contributes to the decarbonisation of transport, therefore reduced emissions and improved air quality. The EIB's involvement provides additional financial flexibility and unlocks long term funding for the project implementation.

Overall, EIB's intervention will provide equity-like risk capital for the Company at a critical time in its development and the scaling up of its network. This will enable the Company to reach critical size across four countries and to become a leading charging point operator across the region.

The EIB will be in a position to offer terms (tenor, availability, repayment flexibility) that go beyond what the market can offer. The EIB is also able to accompany the borrower across 4 countries which is not always possible for market players.

The project would not have been carried out (to the same extent) by the EIB without the InvestEU support.

The connections between the EV charging stations and the medium and low voltage power grid may fall under Annex II of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) Directive 2014/52/EU amending the Directive 2011/92/EU on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on environment (EIA Directive). In such cases, the EIB will require to be informed by the Competent Authority of the screening decision issued.

The borrower has been assessed by the EIB as being a private company and hence not being subject to EU rules on public procurement or concessions.