French oil and gas corporation TotalEnergies has reached an agreement with the city of Berlin to install up to 500 public AC charge points over the next three years. These charging stations will have a capacity of 11 kW and will be operated by TotalEnergies until 2030. The partnership, known as the “Berliner Modell,” was announced during the inauguration of the first charging station on Babelsberger Straße 46 in Berlin-Schöneberg.
The installation and operation of the charging points will be carried out in collaboration with the Berlin Senate and the local grid operator, Stromnetz Berlin. The stations will not only provide an 11 kW charging capacity but will also be powered by 100% renewable energy. However, the reason for the operational limit until 2030 has not been disclosed.
The specific locations for the 500 charging points, whether in residential areas, outskirts, or the city center, have not been specified in the communication received from TotalEnergies. Jan Petersen, Managing Director of TotalEnergies Charging Solutions Deutschland, expressed enthusiasm about the project, stating, “We are very pleased to contribute to making electromobility more accessible to more people in Berlin. Our publicly accessible charging points offer an attractive and sustainable option for many Berlin households without private parking spaces to charge their electric vehicles with green energy. TotalEnergies is committed to expanding the charging infrastructure in Germany, including public street charging and partner locations.”
TotalEnergies has secured contracts since 2020 to develop public charging networks in various major urban areas, including Greater Amsterdam (22,000 charging points), Antwerp (3,000), Flanders (4,400), Brussels (500), Ghent (800), London (2,100), Paris (2,300), Singapore (1,500), and Wuhan (11,000). In October 2022, TotalEnergies established its charging infrastructure subsidiary in Germany. The company is also working with Air Liquide to build a European hydrogen network for trucks. With plans to operate over 150,000 charging stations in Europe and Asia by 2027, TotalEnergies remains committed to expanding its presence in the electric mobility sector.
However, TotalEnergies is planning to divest from its consumer-facing petrol station business in certain countries, including Germany and the Netherlands. The company intends to sell its network of gas stations in these countries to Canadian company Couche-Tard. This decision is driven by the expected phase-out of internal combustion engines in the European Union by 2035.
It is important to note that TotalEnergies’ divestment from petrol stations does not indicate a complete departure from the oil business, despite the company’s efforts to present itself as environmentally friendly. Legal action is currently underway, as environmental organizations Greenpeace France, Friends of the Earth France, and Notre Affaire a Tous, supported by ClientEarth, have filed a lawsuit against TotalEnergies. The lawsuit argues that the company’s advertising campaign promoting its “reinvention” misleads the public regarding its plans and their impact on the climate crisis. In May, TotalEnergies failed to prevent the net zero greenwashing case from proceeding, which ClientEarth considers to be a “historic” development.
