The
National Highway for EV (NHEV) Working Group members met Advisor NITI Aayog
Sudhendu J Sinha (Infrastructure, Connectivity – Transport and Electric
Mobility) and discussed the recently announced policy for ‘Battery Swapping’
from Ease of Doing Business perspective of their stakeholders.
In
a meeting organised by leading tech-piloting agency Ease of Doing Business, the
‘Working Group’ (team for its E-mobility pilots) with NITI Aayog’s Advisor for
Infrastructure, connectivity – transport and electric mobility battery
standardisation and need for piloting a prototype for ground realities were
proposed.
NHEV
has already opened India’s largest charging station for EVs in Gurugram for
technical inspection for various ‘Certification Compliance’ and ‘Safety
Standards’ with 100 chargers last week. It has 75 AC and 25 DC chargers and is
lined up to open in March 2022.
“Battery
Swapping units shall also get deployed in one existing and 3 upcoming prototype
charging stations-- 2 in Noida and 2 in Gurugram where initially it would be
used by electric vehicles to unload large trucks and sending all light and
heavy goods and parcels inside the city via EV loader and small electric tempo
using swappable batteries. This shall significantly reduce numbers of large
diesel vehicle entering city and polluting the air, said Abhijeet Sinha,
National Program Director, Ease of Doing Business program and Project Director
of National Highway for Electric Vehicle.
He
also added that this swapping facility shall comply existing standards made
available to them from Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and shall be open for
technical inspection for various ‘Certification Compliance’ and ‘Safety
Standards’ laid by Power Ministry or any other competent regulatory body. This
shall contribute ground realities, technical constraints and economic
viabilities in the policy as use case and will upgrade itself to any new
regulation introduced in policy.
It
was also brought for consultation in the meeting that all 30 NHEV charging
stations on Jaipur – Delhi –Agra E-highway are going to have 20 two wheelers
and 20 three wheelers EV with swapping units, open for use with a mobile app
subscription like Yulu. Tourists can use these 2 wheeler for roaming in streets
of Matura, Vrindavan, Agra, Jaipur from highways to go inside cities and return
these bikes on their way back.
Electric
3 wheeler, loaders and pick-up tempo shall be used to minimise delivery time of
parcel and goods inside adjacent cities from landing warehouses at these
charging stations on highways within few hours from Delhi to shrink e-commerce
delivery in hours from days.
Sudhendu
J. Sinha, Adviser (Infrastructure, Connectivity – Transport and Electric
Mobility), NITI Aayog, appreciated various interventions like EVRS and said
that “More such technical interventions to make, model charging stations, model
EV districts and Model swapping points are needed to simplify the installation
process, smooth financing and business-models to actual deliver Ease of Doing
Business in the sector.”
Akshay Ahuja- Exicom, Praveen Yadav and
Narendra- Alektrify, Harshal Gupta & John- Yulu, Shwetank Jain- P2power,
Mukesh Malik - Growth Kinetics, Rajiv Ranjan & R.K. Shriranga- Mapmyindia,.
Vikrant- EvItech, Ms Naaz, Ms. Vaishaly & Abdur from NHEV joined this
meeting. The next meeting scheduled on Feb 25, 2022 shall provide more details
on standards and role that NH for EV working group shall play in battery
swapping policy from national highway for electric vehicle pilot perspective.