ZAGREB, 30 June 2022 - The first electric vehicle charger in a lamppost has been installed in the Zagreb suburb of Buzin, and trial chargers will be installed in 200 lampposts in several cities next year as part of a pilot project, while more than 100,000 will be installed across Croatia in the next decade.

This is part of a project aimed at expanding the electric vehicle infrastructure launched by the Strujni krug e-mobility association.

Taking part in the pilot project are Zagreb, Velika Gorica and Osijek.

The Smart Energy company, which is part of the M SAN group, designed the first 3.5 kW charging station. Since it is still being tested, its use is possible, free of charge, via the PlugSurfing app. Although this is the first prototype that can be used this way, three or four other operators are expected to install their trial chargers in lampposts in the weeks ahead.

There is a considerable number of charging stations in Croatia and the number of electric vehicles is increasing by the day, which calls for increasing the number of chargers.

A Strujni krug survey shows that 60% of electric vehicle owners charge them at home, in their garages or backyards, but people who live in flats, notably in city centres, cannot do it without the adequate parking spaces.

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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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