TotalEnergies, SSE to launch EV charging company in UK and Ireland

By America Hernandez

PARIS - French oil major TotalEnergies and UK power firm SSE are seeking to grab a 20% share of the electric vehicle (EV) fast-charging market in Britain and Ireland by launching a joint venture named Source, the companies said on Tuesday.

Source, a 50/50 partnership, will deploy and operate up to 3,000 fast-charge points in the two countries over the next five years, to be supplied with renewable energy by both parent companies.

The 150 kilowatt (kW) fast-charge stations, which use direct current as opposed to alternating current, can take a typical EV battery from empty-to-full in 30 minutes to an hour.

TotalEnergies declined to give an amount of the total investment, but said rates today for rolling out 3,000 fast- charge points, which use direct current electricity, was on the order of 300 million euros.

TotalEnergies and SSE are already partners in Scotland's largest offshore wind farm, Seagreen, while Total operates a network of 2,500 charging points in and around London and about 65,000 in continental Europe, most of which are slow-charge stations, which use alternating current.

"We have acquired a certain expertise in charging point management, construction, implementation, and client services ... and SSE knows the integrated electricity grid aspect of the business well, so the partnership is very complementary," Mathieu Solas, director of new mobility at TotalEnergies, told journalists at a briefing.

Fellow oil majors Shell and BP are also growing their EV charging business in the UK, as Britain has passed a mandate requiring new light vehicles to be zero emissions and as Scotland targets one million EVs on the road by 2030.

(Reporting by America Hernandez in Paris; editing by David Evans)