The Croatian government is working intensively on increasing the number of charging stations for electric vehicles, a senior official of the Ministry of Environment Protection and Energy said on Tuesday.

Ministry official, Ivo Milatic, who spoke at a conference on electric vehicles organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Croatia (AmCham) said that the technology of producing energy from the sun, wind and water was increasingly becoming more accessible and feasible, which is one of the reasons why electricity-powered modes of transport are the future.

He added that the transport sector accounts for one third of the entire consumption of energy in Croatia, with little under 90 percent of the energy used in transport in Croatia used by gas-powered vehicles, either running on diesel or petrol fuels.

Milatic said the government had advertised a 12 million kuna (€1.62 million) public call earlier this month to co-finance the purchase of energy efficient vehicles, with the upper limit of the government’s subsidy for an individual vehicle set at 80,000 kuna (€10,800).

According to data released by the European Commission, in 2011 there were only 9,400 newly registered plug-in electric vehicles in the European Union, which grew to 157,000 in 2016. As for vehicle charging stations, in 2011 there were some 3,800 across the EU, which grew to 91,000 in 2016. In July 2017, the state-run power board HEP said there were 46 ELEN vehicle charging stations in the country. HEP also plans to install the first high-powered fast-charging stations for electric vehicles along Croatian motorways which are part of the TEN-T European road network.

(€1 = 7.41 kuna)

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