Bjorn Nyland, a Norwegian national, had revealed his love for electric vehicles (EV) recently by unveiling a 100-spot electric vehicle charging facility in Oslo, Norway. Now, going one step further, the proud owner of a Tesla model, is setting up a 250-spot indoor charging structure in Finland, twice that of the earlier facility installed in Norway. Incidentally, Finland is home to only about 1000 electric vehicles. So setting up a facility for 250 electric vehicles is kind of really thinking far ahead.
The work for the new facility has already began in April and is planned for completion by June. The facility under discussion is currently under construction at Varma’s head office situated in Salmisaari, Helsinki.
The project is a joint partnership between Varma, a Mutual Pension Insurance Company and Parkkisahko Ltd, a charging services provider in a real estate environment. Once the construction is complete, Parkkisahko will take care of user transactions for “ordering” the charging required for their EVs.
The CEO of Parkkisahko Ltd, Jiri Rasanen commented, ““This is one of the single largest parking facilities in the world to be equipped with chargers at nearly every parking spot. We believe that the users of the Salmisaari parking services will value the flexibility of the service. With recharging offered as a service, the property owner’s role is highlighted, and at the same time, it promotes the quicker adoption of electric cars.”
The facility has been designed keeping in mind the load on the high-speed chargers. Different types of chargers shall be available to meet different users’ needs. Adding value to the green credentials is the fact the power to the facility will be generated via hydropower.
Toni Pekonen, Varma’s Commercial Property Director shared, “As electric cars become more common, charging stations will be needed in places where they spend extended periods of time. This has also been taken into account in the environmental certification of buildings, as well as in EU legislation to take effect in 2019 concerning requirements for electric vehicles in properties and new buildings.”
“Equipping the parking facility with electric car chargers also nicely promotes our target of reducing Varma’s carbon footprint; at the same time, it helps us encourage our tenants to opt for an environmentally friendly mode of transportation. The vehicles in the parking facility will be charged with green electricity, as the electricity in our property is generated by hydropower” he further added.
Industry experts predict that around 250000 Electric Vehicles (EV) will be filling the Finnish roads by 2030. The prediction might require a recalculation and could even point to a faster growth if Finland sees this kind of infrastructure development.
Here is a video of Bjorn Nyland explaining about the earlier Norway project.
