March 22: Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has selected a Chinese firm to build 50 charging stations for electric vehicles in the Kathmandu valley and along the highways. Jiyansu Guangdong New Energy Technology (Star Charge) has won the contract to build the charging stations in the country.

Altogether 13 companies had submitted applications in response to a global tender called by NEA. Of the 13 companies, only three companies were technically eligible. Sagar Mani Gyawali, head of the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure and Construction Project of NEA confirmed that Star Charge has been selected to build the charging stations. NEA has already provided the letter of intent to the Chinese firm.

The agreement will be signed between the Chinese company and the authority within March. According to Gyawali, the company will shoulder all the responsibility of constructing and procuring required materials. The company will also be responsible for the maintenance works for five years.

As per the plan, seven charging stations will be built in the valley and the other stations will be built along the highways.  NEA had estimated the cost of the construction to be Rs 500 million but the Chinese company plans to construct the stations at just Rs 380 million.

The construction of the stations will begin soon after the agreement is signed and project will be completed in a year, said Gyawali. “We plan to complete the construction of charging stations in six to eight months but the preparations required on technical part will require a year for the successful completion of the project,” Gyawali said.

Those charging stations will have infrastructure like transformer, low-high transmission line, software and communication, payment gateway for the payment of bills. One charging station will be  of the capacity of 142 kW which will have DC power of 120 kW and AC power of 22kW. It takes two hours for a 200kW vehicle to get fully charge.