The Association Strujni Krug established last year by the co-founder of HGspot, Hrvoje Prpić, business angel, Saša Cvetojević and co-founder of Klasik TV, Maja Jelišić Cooper, presented the most ambitious electric mobility project up to now. The Association plans to install in Croatia by the year 2026, 100.000 e-vehicle chargers in public lighting columns – as reported byJutarnji list. The entire project would be implemented in cooperation with towns and cities, whereas there no lack of interest exists for such a solution on the part of numerous companies. Hrvoje Prpić, the chairman of the Strujni Krug Association pointed out that as many as 30 percent of e-vehicle drivers in Croatia have no possibility of charging their vehicles overnight. They, namely, keep them on public and city parking lots and their number will only grow with the further expansion of e-vehicles. “In London, they worked out this problem by installing charging infrastructure in public lighting columns and our Association is advocating for the implementation of a similar solution in Croatia so we have already begun elaborating a plan to that effect. In other words, in order to solve the problems of electric vehicle owners who leave their vehicles overnight in the street, the British company Ubitricity initiated the project of installing chargers in lighting columns and has already set five thousand charges in the streets of London. This solution would also be appropriate for Croatia”, Prpić pointed out.
He also underlined that the Association itself does not plan the installation of chargers but rather the organization of the whole project. “A large number of current operators doing business in Croatia are already included in it as well as a few companies engaged in the production of chargers including consulting firms working on the drawing up of documentation. Our plan is to prepare the documentation and send it to cities so they can initiate public tenders. In addition, we will lobby for the project to be included in the National Development Strategy of the Republic of Croatia do 2030 whereby it would be partially subsidized”, Prpić emphasized.
He also mentioned that the energy operators, among others, GENI and EON showed interest as well as companies such as Piraexa, and added that the selection of locations in which the installation of chargers is planned is completely left to the cities – Jutarnji list writes.
