Smart, Cloud-connected electric vehicle charging in Europe

Image courtesy Allego

Policy approach(es) used to catalyse investment Development of a national, regional, or sectoral InfraTech strategy  

Commercial approach(es) used to catalyse investment: Adoption of an innovative partnership / risk sharing model; a new/innovative source of revenue  

Technology approach(es) used to catalyse investment: Implementation of a data platform or digital twin for greater transparency over performance 

Finance approach(es) used to catalyse investment: Strategic investment by a corporate partner  

Allego is an EV charging operator centred in Arnhem, Netherlands that deploys and operates charging infrastructure across 16 European countries with its Allego EVCloud™ Platform. The aim of the Allego InfraTech project is to identify and assess the right charging locations to onboard, control, and operate tens of thousands of connected EV chargers from multiple vendors. It operates this European-wide distributed energy data-driven infrastructure according to grid constraints. The network is powered by a 100% green energy supply from markets or directly from solar/wind farm production. Allego has entered into strategic partnerships across Europe to expand its networks.

Image courtesy Allego

Allego is the main technological coordinator and developers are used for some elements of the infrastructure. Allego has subcontracted important elements of the platform to a French technological R&D company, MOMA, that is specialised in energy-related development. The solution was developed from scratch but has aggregated existing bricks (e.g., the energy platform).

The InfraTech developed by Allego is a strong enabler of EV mobility in Europe. The existence of this infrastructure has enabled 414 million green kilometres and supported the avoidance of approximately 59 million kilograms of CO2 emissions in 2021. It also supports the business of Allego, which has achieved a turnover of around EUR90 million 2021 with positive operational earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation.

Replicability

Financing techniques and global approaches used to develop renewable energy infrastructure were used along with the newly developed technology results to finance the whole project. Non-recourse debt for infrastructure investment has been achieved. 

Image courtesy Allego

Key aspects of the technology and of the project for attracting investment included providing investors with a high predictability of the EV charging utilisation rate on each location, in the context of a fast-growing market. Ongoing improvement of the model is achieved with usage data of the infrastructure, ensuring a high availability and uptime of the infrastructure through technology, ensuring scalability of the whole infrastructure from chargers onboarding to billing, and managing direct sourcing of green energy through a fully automated platform.  

Challenges experienced/overcome in implementation

Several elements of the global Allego InfraTech project were challenging, including the management of electrotechnical equipment (chargers) from various vendors in an emerging market where standards are still in a ‘work in progress’ state; accommodating various grid connection constraints and norms across all European countries; properly assessing the traffic on future sites with a very limited experience curve; convincing financial institutions that the ‘site assessment technology’ was fit for long-term investment including through non-recourse debt; and integrating all the different components of the technological platform in a scalable way.

Other approaches that enabled investment

The technology has enabled Allego to equip sites, which were not considered suitable by the rest of the EV charging industry (i.e., non-highway sites), with Ultra-Fast Chargers. Allego also undertook commercial partnership conditions with landowners. 

Note: This case study and all information within was submitted by Allego in response to our global call for InfraTech case studies.