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Minister Bart Tommelein (Open Vld) gave the cities the task of installing as many charge points for electric cars as possible. For Antwerp, the target was 272 charge points. The City of Antwerp decided to organise the installation itself and gave companies the opportunity to apply. “By organising this ourselves, we can work quickly and efficiently,” explains alderman Koen Kennis (N-VA). “It isn’t the intention that we install these charge points at random without taking the demand into account. Because a parking space is lost with each new charge point. So, the best place to charge your electric or hybrid car is still at home or at work.”

Investment

“In 2011, we installed the first charge points before the electric car had become well known,” says co-founder Luc Lebon of the Antwerp company Blue Corner, which installs the charge points. The company invests between four and five thousand euros for each charge point. It can recoup that investment using a subscription payment system. Since 2016, Blue Corner has already installed eighty charge points and another fifty will be installed by the end of 2017. Another hundred will follow in the spring of 2018. “But there may be many more to come. Much depends on the evolution of electric cars. But the figures of the past four years show that the use of charge points has more or less doubled with Antwerp leading the way among Belgian cities,” says Lebon.

Suggestions?

In particular, the number of underground car parks and park & ride car parks on the outskirts of the city is being expanded. Antwerp residents can also make suggestions as to where they think a charge point is needed. “We’ve already received 40 such applications of which 28 have been approved and 10 referred to existing points. The rest is still being looked at,” concludes Kennis.