October the 27th, 2021 - The Croatian Strujni Krug Association (Electric Circle) has been at the forefront of promoting all things electric for some time now, and they are now bringing together important actors for the benefit of electric vehicle owners.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Croatian Strujni Krug Association has brought together the five largest charging station operators in the Republic of Croatia, which together make up 99 percent of the entire domestic market, in order to enable electric vehicle drivers to have access to almost all chargers across Croatia and a large number in the European Union (EU), the association revealed this week.

Electric car drivers have long faced the problem of a large number of applications that need to be installed in order to activate the charger to which they intend to connect their vehicles. The reason for this is that every Croatian bottling plant operator has its own application.

Last week, therefore, the first meeting was held between the representatives of the Croatian Strujni Krug Association and the largest Croatian filling station operators: ELEN, Petrol, Hrvatski Telekom (Croatian Telecom), MOON and Absolute, and an initiative was launched to establish full and proper cooperation between the aforementioned entities.

It was proposed at the meeting that all operators connect to a common platform, and in the second step, they should conclude bilateral agreements that would avoid additional roaming costs.

In this way, it will be enough for electric vehicle drivers/users to use only one application, from any of these operators, in order to have access to all publicly available filling stations of their partner operators.

"What we've achieved in Croatia puts us ahead of most other European Union member states. If we continue to do down this path, I'm sure that the Republic of Croatia will achieve 100 percent of the sales of new electric vehicles before 2032, when this goal is expected to be achieved,'' said the president of the Croatian Strujni Krug Association, Hrvoje Prpic.

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As Novac writes on the 8th of November, 2019, the Republic of Croatia has now received its 100th electric vehicle charging station, thus continuing the expansion of the ELEN network in cities with the aim of facilitating safe long-distance electric car trips across the country.

In addition, according to HEP, it contributes to the electrification of Croatian transport, as well as the fight against climate change, and fulfills the goals of the European Union's energy policy.

''With the commissioning of the 100th electric vehicle charging station, HEP has confirmed itself as a key entity in the electrification of transport in Croatia, which is carried out in accordance with the guidelines of the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the policies of the European Union. At the moment, more than a hundred charging stations are installed across Croatia, 26 of which are in Zagreb,'' said HEP's Frane Barbarić, adding that HEP is only halfway through the planned construction of infrastructure for electric vehicles, a move worth a massive 60 million kuna in total.

HEP's 100th charging station are located in the centre of Zagreb, (King Tomislav Square/Trg Kralja Tomislava), and is co-financed by the EAST-E EU project, under which HEP will install 27 rapid 50 kW charging stations across Croatia.

HEP has so far installed ten such charging stations in Zagreb, nine of which are public and one is located in the garage of the office building at its headquarters. In addition, six more stations are in the process of being completed, while for a further 20 stations, the location of their installation is currently being defined.

According to the planned realisation, HEP will have a total of 35 public charging stations for electric cars in the City of Zagreb. At the moment, HEP's filling network covers all motorways and other important road routes in Croatia, city centres and tourist destinations, including several islands, and extends over the City of Zagreb and an impressive eighteen Croatian counties.

At the beginning of 2015, HEP began the cycle of building ELEN charging stations in various Croatian cities, following the provisions of the European Directive on the establishment of alternative fuel infrastructure, which by 2020 foresees the availability of charging stations for every 50 kilometres of motorway, in all agglomerations with more than 20,000 inhabitants and in all ports and airports, as well as railway and bus stations.

The setting up of 100 public ELEN charging stations throughout Croatia is funded by HEP's own funds and EU funds through EAST-E, NEXT-E and bigEVdata projects. They are currently testing all the end-user service options, including the payment models themselves, which will result in the commercialisation of the service in the coming months.

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