Arun Vinayak
Pranav Srivilasan
Powering EVs on the highway is an entirely different beast compared to urban charging.
We’ve talked a lot before about charging anxiety being one of the biggest hurdles to EV adoption. That holds true for cities and doubly so for highways, where potential EV buyers struggle with the fear that they may not get to a charger. Whether for cars, buses or even trucks in the future, having access to fast, reliable charging across the country is vital.
It’s also hugely challenging as things stand today.
Much of Indian highways don’t have any connection to the electrical grid, and where available it may not support the load for high-powered charging stations. Discoms across states have different processes, policies and capabilities. And where everything else falls into place, the reliability and response time of the grid is often noticeably worse than in cities.
Even in China, which has the world’s largest public charger network, highways are a “weak link”, according to a paper by the International Council on Clean Transportation. Less than 2% of public chargers were on highways. The Chinese government knows this is an issue and is planning network expansion on highways.
We think solving the highway charging issue is doable if network operators, discoms and the government work together—but more on that later. First, we need to look at three big challenges for highway infra.
1. Getting power
Most locations on highways simply don’t have the actual electrical infrastructure in place to connect anything, let alone an EV charging station. There are literally no lines.
And even when there are connections in some places, the load sanctioned by the discom doesn’t cover the requirements for true rapid-charging or for heavier vehicles like buses. Petrol/diesel stations don’t have this kind of limitation and are spread more freely. Plus, highway chargers currently cater overwhelmingly to passenger cars, and the majority output only 60 kW or less.
For discoms, committing to higher loads is difficult because of both the limitations of the existing infrastructure in place and the cyclic and—for now—unpredictable nature of vehicle charging. At off-peak hours, discoms may be happy to accommodate charging, but at peak times they might cut supply or ask a network operator to de-rate their charge points.
2. Hefty capex costs
A follow-on issue to the lack of lines and connections in place: If a network operator wants to set up a charging station, they have to pay out of pocket to put in place the needed infrastructure. Transformers, protection, switchgear like RMUs (ring main units) and so on.
The cost of buying and then installing all this equipment can come out to be 3-4x the cost of the charging station itself. The discom can then use this to deliver connections to other customers too, creating a sort of first-mover disadvantage for the private operator who installed the infrastructure.
Smaller network operators can’t justify this level of capital expenditure. Large operators, on the other hand, can deploy larger stations with multiple chargers—the cost of the distribution infra doesn’t change much. The result? Less competition and fewer chargers at currently off-grid locations, even if those spots are ideal for chargers given traffic patterns and route lengths.
3. Grid reliability
Whether in cities or on highways, reliability is a common issue with electrical grids in India. It varies widely from state to state and discom to discom, but also within states. Urban grids tend to get more attention and spending compared to rural ones, and highway locations are effectively rural for the most part.
Also given that highway fuelling or charging locations are far from habitation, maintenance is simply a practical problem for discoms. Any damage to the lines or equipment failure somewhere along the chain just has a much longer turnaround time when outside a city.
Discoms end up slower to react, especially if an issue comes up, say, in the middle of the night. Sending in technicians, diagnosing issues and deploying fixes is something urban residents and businesses expect to be done in a few hours at the most. Very much not the case on the highway.
The solution?
The fundamental problem of highway charging is that network operators are constrained by where they can get a connection and an appropriate load.
Building out the entire infrastructure to deliver electricity at a particular location is just not viable for private network operators. At the same time, it isn’t necessarily viable for discoms in many states either, given their financial constraints and the current unpredictability of EV demand.
The fundamental problem of highway charging is that network operators are constrained by where they can get a connection and an appropriate load.
Building out the entire infrastructure to deliver electricity at a particular location is just not viable for private network operators. At the same time, it isn’t necessarily viable for discoms in many states either, given their financial constraints and the current unpredictability of EV demand.
The way out is for governments—at both the national and the state level—to help finance and deploy the basic infrastructure needed. One way to implement this is as hubs or power parks strategically located along highways, where:
Government initiatives install transformers, lines and other equipment to provide connections.
Discoms maintain the infrastructure and deliver power, ideally providing priority feeder lines.
Charging network operators deploy EV stations at the hub and handle all the costs associated with serving end customers.
On top of this, to tackle grid challenges in these setups, battery-based energy storage systems (i.e. ESS) are an important factor. The fundamental concept is simple—hook up battery storage to charge while energy is readily available and power the charging hub when grid supply is out or limited. (The US Joint Office of Energy and Transportation has an entire set of recommendations on energy storage for EV charging.)
Battery storage acts as a backup for the charging hub, when the grid is down or a line is damaged, ensuring reliable charging at all times for the end user.
It also acts as a buffer. Energy is stored during low demand periods and during peak demand times, charging stations can use energy from the ESS alongside energy from the grid. This reduces pressure on the grid and helps avoid costly upgrades in the short term (especially important for rapid charging with its high power draw).
In the same way, battery storage also helps reduce costs by storing energy when power is cheap and using it for charging vehicles when demand and prices are high. This is usually called “peak shaving”, which ultimately results in lower prices for the consumer.
A vision for the future
Fundamentally, electrical equipment like substations, transformers and power lines need to be seen as common or public infrastructure—just like roads or highways. They can be built through public-private partnerships, but they cannot be driven or ultimately owned by the private sector.
Just as with highways, electrical infrastructure and hubs can be set up through tenders across states and at the national level. Once in place, equipment such as transformers will last decades, up to 30 or 40 years—which for a government is also easy to finance since they can get very long-term debt. The industry, on the other hand, can focus spending on vehicles, batteries and chargers that run on top of this public infrastructure, and could pay a toll or usage fee of some kind.
The buildout of public goods is handled by the government, while companies handle products and services, making for a much more feasible business.
Another advantage of this approach is that power parks open up competition. Not just between different operators, but also between different technologies and charging protocols. Rapid charging, battery swapping, heavy and light vehicle charging, different connector standards, and more. Instead of trying to standardize on just one protocol for public charging, policymakers can focus on the existing universal standard—400 volt three-phase AC power.
With the right infrastructure and strategies in place, multiple charge point operators can operate out of each hub, competing to give the best experience. They can offer various charging speeds and costs, and also cater to a much wider range of vehicles, from small cars to SUVs to buses to trucks and maybe even two-wheelers.
The end result—a more vibrant, faster-growing EV market.
Intercity buses, for example, account for an estimated 40% of India’s road travel and 23% of energy consumption for passenger transport. But electric buses are less than 1% of the market today, in large part because enough charging infrastructure isn’t in place. (And also because of long charging times, which bus operators are put off by.)
The good news is that the government is also making a push to build out charging stations on major intercity routes. The National Highways for Electric Vehicles project has been in the works since 2020 and is kicking off the third phase of trials. The ambitious plan is to have charging locations along 5,500 km of national highways by 2027, coupled with clean power generation (solar, wind, hydrogen) on site.
That would be a great start—and if the power park approach takes off, we think India’s electrification targets for the decade become that much easier to achieve.