Ireland gets second high-speed EV charging hub

The Barack Obama Plaza on the M7 has become the site of the State’s latest high-powered electric vehicle (EV) hub, with facilities to provide a car with up to 100km of range in six minutes, the ESB announced on Monday.

The eight-bay high-power ‘pumps’ located at the plaza near Moneygall, Co Tipperary, each offer up to 200kw of charge for electric vehicles along the route between Dublin, Limerick and the southwest. It follows the opening of a similar facility on the M7 at Mayfield near Monasterevin, Co Kildare.

The Mayfield location also serves vehicles en route to Cork. It offers three high-power chargers of up to 350kw and one fast charger of up to 50kw. Each charger has two ‘pumps’.

Charging speeds are dependent on how quickly a vehicle is built to charge. Many midrange vehicles are limited to power intake of about 45-75kw. However, the ESB said a number of new EVs are built to take charges at higher power levels. It added that the bays at Barack Obama Plaza would be “a game-changer for EV drivers, particularly those travelling long distances in the midlands and Munster region”.

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The announcement marks a milestone in the organisation’s €20 million investment in all-island EV infrastructure, which aims to deliver 50 high-power hubs across the country as part of its national EV network strategy.

The ESB said, in addition to the multiple bay hubs, that it had already installed 28 high-power chargers at sites nationwide and had replaced almost all of the standard 22kw chargers with newer technology. It said it now has some 1,350 chargers across the island.

It said the electricity supplied at its ecar pumps comes from purely renewable sources, bought from an electricity supplier in the Irish market. “The supplier purchases guarantees of origin in the EU market to meet the green demand of its customers such as ourselves,” an ESB spokesman said.

The owner of the Obama and Mayfield plazas, Supermac’s founder Pat McDonagh, said EVs are becoming “an increasing presence on our forecourts”.

“This is certainly way of the future, and we are delighted to be a part of it,” he said.

Matthew Sealy, chairman of the Irish EV Association, which represents electric vehicle owners and enthusiasts, said it was “fantastic to see the rapidly expanding network of charging hubs across the country, which will encourage even more people to make the switch”.