• The Minister of Energy Transition Barbara Pompili inaugurated an innovative charging station this Friday near Rennes.

  • The State wishes to encourage the purchase of cleaner vehicles by maintaining its premiums and linking the territory with charging stations.

  • Brittany relies heavily on these battery-connected terminals in order to be able to relieve its network which is sometimes under tension.

“I looked in the archives. The last time a minister came to Vezin-le-Coquet was in 1742 ”. The mayor of Vezin René-François Houssin put an end to this dearth this Friday by welcoming Barbara Pompili with great pomp to his small town located a stone's throw from Rennes. Surrounded by an impressive parterre of dark costumes and Jean-Louis Borloo's red rain jacket, the Minister of Energy Transition came to inaugurate a fast charging station for electric vehicles installed at the edge of a deserted road, between a corn field and grassland.

The reason for this ministerial trip was a few meters from the famous station, in a light beige electrical box.

This huge battery imagined by the company NW Groupe is in fact used as power supply to the charging stations located next to it.

The objective is simple: to avoid pumping electricity from the network when the latter is already under voltage.

Anything but anecdotal in a region that has struggled for years to gain energy independence.

"Oil addiction puts us right in the wall"

For the Minister of Energy Transition, this field visit is timely. While the price of gasoline and diesel have soared, Barbara Pompili wants to remind "the need" for French citizens to think about plug-in hybrid vehicles or electric. “Oil addiction puts us right into the wall. For many French people, the question of switching to electric raised concerns about not finding a charging station. We have to show them that there will be everywhere. Not only on motorway areas or in towns, but also in rural areas, ”argues the Minister. Rising electricity prices? “It will be offset by massive investment in renewable energies. The only ones whose cost we can control, ”argues the Minister.

France currently has 47,000 charging stations (apart from terminals installed in individuals and businesses) and hopes to increase this figure to 100,000 in the next two years. The day after the announcement of the maintenance of the conversion bonus and the ecological bonus for another six months, the minister promised that all the motorway areas would be equipped with terminals by the end of 2023. The State offers up to 5,000 euros in conversion bonus and up to 6,000 euros in ecological bonus for the purchase of a low-polluting vehicle.

This Friday, Barbara Pompili came to salute the “French inventiveness” embodied by the system called IE Charge developed by NW Groupe.

“The observation is simple.

If we want electricity to progress, we need fast charging stations.

But they must be intelligent, to avoid peaks in consumption and saturation of the network, ”explains CEO Jean-Christophe Kerdelhué.

With this first terminal inaugurated in Vezin, his company wishes to show off its know-how.

It plans to launch 150 more by the end of 2023 in France, and has already signed contracts to equip neighboring countries such as Italy, Finland and Spain.

"It's not sexy, you can't see it and it's complex

 "

Installed close to the Belle-Epine substation, this battery called J-Box will be able to store energy to restore it at any time, without drawing on the network. This innovation that the State wishes to encourage has received the support of Brittany, which has agreed to finance the installation of nine batteries on its territory. The reason for this choice? The energy dependence of the region, located on the outskirts and which risks blackout with each cold snap. “It's been ten years since we signed the Breton electricity pact. One of the challenges is to build an intelligent network capable of absorbing the production of intermittent energies. It's not sexy, it can't be seen and it's complex. But it is essential if we want to have our sovereignty ”, advances Loïg Chesnais-Girard (PS),president of the region.

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