WRI Develops Tool For Financial Evaluation of Public Charging Stations For Electric Vehicles 

The World Resources Institute (WRI)-India, one of India’s leading clean energy think tanks, has now developed a unique tool to undertake the financial evaluation of public charging stations (PCS) meant for electric vehicles. The organization has named it ‘Financial Analysis of Charging Station (FACt).’

The international think-tank claimed there need to be more evaluation tools in India. “WRI India, under the NDC-Transport Initiative for Asia (NDCTIA), has developed a user-friendly tool that offers a flexible and transparent method to conduct a quick preliminary assessment of the financial justification for setting up a PCS. But, currently, there are no such open access tools available in the public domain that work in the Indian context with current solutions primarily developed for advanced economies,” WRI said in a statement. 

The FACt has been crafted to help different agencies in urban areas identify the financial burdens that might hamper the private deployment of public charging stations. The organization said this could help the stakeholders design policies accordingly to overcome the bottlenecks. 

“This model is beneficial for entities interested in gaining a foundational understanding of PCS finances in India, such as financial institutions, policymakers/regulators, real estate companies, urban local bodies, and implementing agencies,” WRI-India said in its statement. 

WRI-India has made the tool considering the Indian context, which considers the mainstream EV charges, the power tariffs, frameworks and regulations, land arrangements, and other vital factors. In addition, it considers the technological, operational, financial, and regulatory aspects of undertaking financial calculations. 

The tool allows the users to benchmark the project’s full-form internal rate of return and gives them a sneak peek into the conditions required to get the targeted rate of return.