Voltera Rolls Out Charging Stations
Voltera is a new company that builds, owns, and operates charging facilities that enable electric vehicle deployment and operation at scale. Partners in the new company include EQT Infrastructure for equity backing and EdgeConneX for critical infrastructure expertise.
“Fleet operators, automakers, and consumers alike are adopting electric vehicles at a rapidly accelerating pace,” said Matt Horton, CEO, in a prepared statement. “Lagging far behind, though, is the power infrastructure needed to support EVs at scale. We have to bridge that gap if we’re going to make zero-emission transportation a reality.”
Voltera is targeting companies that have a need to power EVs at scale, including organizations looking to electrify without disrupting operations or investing significant time and upfront capital to install EV charging capacity.
Voltera plans to invest several billion dollars on deployments that are both customer-driven (in a particular location for a particular customer) and thesis-driven (proactive development in the strategic locations customers will need to be). This approach significantly speeds time to market and enables customers to meet their deployment timetables, according to the company.
“Charging infrastructure is one of the most critical requirements for EV deployment at scale,” said Horton. “As companies take initial delivery on large EV orders, they’re finding that the charging infrastructure does not exist at the scale needed to support those, or future, deployments. A key part of the challenge is that charging facilities need to be strategically located and require vast amounts of power.
“In the U.S. and Europe, almost 150 gigawatts power—about equivalent to the annual power consumption of all U.S. households—will be required by EV fleets by 2030.”
Voltera positions itself as a turnkey solution provider, from site identification and acquisition, power procurement, facility design and construction, charging hardware deployment, operations, and maintenance. The company provides EV charging facilities as a service, taking on the capital expenditure so customers can focus their capital on their businesses.
“EQT Infrastructure aims to help support the global energy transition, including by having made several investments in the electrification of the transportation sector, and was looking for opportunities to help develop the EV charging infrastructure necessary to support vehicle electrification at scale,” said EQT partner Jan Vesely, in a statement. “Through our experience in the datacenter and renewables sectors, we understand that the capabilities needed to deliver critical infrastructure for transport electrification at scale are around real estate and renewable power availability. We leveraged our existing know-how in this space to develop the EV charging infrastructure solution that now becomes Voltera.”
Said EdgeConneX CEO Randy Brouckman:
“As a pioneer in the digital infrastructure industry, EdgeConneX has solved many of the same challenges EV fleet operators and automakers face—acquiring, permitting, powering and operating sites in strategic locations, while ensuring customers’ speed to market. It’s a highly logical and practical application of our long-developed data center innovations to solve another very real and significant challenge.”
Source: Voltera