Charging an e-car at a lamppost: Ubitricity makes it possible in Berlin

In the German capital Berlin, it will soon be possible to charge e-cars at street lamps. This is being made possible by Shell subsidiary Ubitricity, which will soon be setting up lamppost charging points.

Over 200 lamppost charging points in Berlin

Shell subsidiary Ubitricity has won the Berlin tender for lantern charging points, as they happily announce in a news report . Accordingly, more than 200 lantern charging points for electric cars are to be set up in the capital to drive forward the expansion of the public charging infrastructure. The expansion is to begin as early as the second quarter of 2022.

The expansion measures will start in the Berlin districts of Steglitz-Zehlendorf and Marzahn-Hellersdorf. Ubitricity is using the Heinz charging point, which was developed specifically for the German market.

Initially, 200 lantern charging points are to be set up in close cooperation with the Berlin Senate Department for the Environment, Mobility, Consumer and Climate Protection. However, if the project extension already applied for by the state of Berlin is approved, up to 800 more charging points could be installed in lanterns in the future.

Implementation according to local guidelines

In the UK, the concept of charging e-cars via lanterns is already enjoying great popularity. Now the company is implementing this model “taking local guidelines”in Germany as well.

Charging stations on street lamps use the existing infrastructure for this purpose and enable city dwellers who do not have a private parking space to have everyday access to charging options in the field of electromobility directly on their doorstep. According to the company, this is expected to be around 60 percent of the population in Berlin.

The Heinz charging point, which ebee Smart Technologies and ubitricity have jointly developed on the EUREF campus, is mounted directly on the streetlight without further sealing of the sidewalk. It comes with a charging capacity of 3.7 kW.

“The choice of the locations of the charging stations is made in close coordination with the Senate Department for the Environment, Mobility, Consumer and Climate Protection as with the districts and takes into account local conditions of the individual districts,” it says on the part of Ubitricity.

The current for the lantern charging points comes thereby from the Shell Energy Retail GmbH and is generated exclusively from renewable energies. Users have the option of charging with their usual rates of their Mobility Service Provider (MSP), for example Shell Recharge, or by ad hoc access by means of a QR code. The latter even requires no registration and no current membership. For both variants, all that is needed is a standard charging cable with a type 2 plug.