Park & Charge
Park & Charge was a European charging infrastructure for solar vehicles and electric vehicles . Operations ceased on January 31, 2019. Some locations can still be used.
Simple lockable charging stations with all the necessary safety devices were set up in parking spaces reserved for electric vehicles. Park & Charge users had access to this. As e-mobiles are generally energy-efficient, relatively small amounts of electricity were used at the Park & Charge charging stations. By eliminating complex technology and with the simplest of organizational measures such as the flat-rate billing ( flat rate ) for the energy and administrative costs were kept low.
Park & Charge has been running a database since 1998 in which the locations of the charging stations are published. The LEMnet database is also open to other providers and has developed into a central overview of charging points in Europe and remains in operation.
history
In 1992, the first four Park & Charge locations were set up in Bern as part of the “Pilot and Demonstration Project (P & D)” of the Federal Office of Energy . After a three-year trial phase, the project was able to be brought into regular operation. The “Electric Mobility Club of Switzerland” (ECS), which had already accompanied the project, took over the financial and legal responsibility for Park & Charge. In the period that followed, Park & Charge developed so well that it needed its own legal form. Park & Charge was founded as an independent association at the end of 1997 (President: Wilfried Blum, Managing Director: Eduard Stolz).
Park & Charge also became available outside of Switzerland. In 1997, the Federal Association of Solar Mobility founded the Park & Charge working group for operation in Germany. Since 1999 there have also been Park & Charge stations in Italy and Austria. In Austria, VLOTTE has taken over the operation since 2010, a project of the “Vorarlberger Elektroautomobil Planungs- und Beratungs GmbH” in association with Vorarlberger Kraftwerke AG (since 2019 illwerke vkw ). There are further charging points in Liechtenstein, France and the Netherlands.
In the canton of Ticino , studies on “Veicoli Elettrici Leggeri” (in German: LEM “Leichte Elektromobile”) were carried out from 1995 to 2001 (VEL1) and 2001 to 2005 (VEL2) as a follow-up to the “Pilot and Demonstration Project (P & D)” . A network of over 100 charging points was set up, which are managed by RiParTI (Ricariche e Parcheggi in Ticino - shops and parking spaces in Ticino).
function
The user receives the key, which enables access to all Park & Charge charging stations in Europe, for a deposit fee. The deposit fee will be reimbursed after the key has been returned.
The vignette, which is uniform throughout Europe, is used to identify the e-mobile to the enforcement authorities and is valid from December 1st of the year preceding the contribution period to January 31st of the following year. It entitles you to use the specially marked parking areas reserved for e-mobiles.
The "+ Energie" vignette for the current year entitles the user to purchase energy ( flat rate ) at all Park & Charge charging stations in Europe for the entire contribution period . The prices for the vignettes are set by the respective national organizations.
Locations
Today Park & Charge offers the possibility to charge electric vehicles at almost 500 locations in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Holland and Italy.
LEMnet
The list of Park & Charge charging stations has been made available to members in a list. The overview also included third-party charging stations, insofar as they were accessible for the use of e-mobiles.
After the reorganization of Park & Charge, the association set up an open database on the Internet that has been in operation since 1998. The name LEMnet is derived from the battery-electric vehicle types that were predominant at the time for Park & Charge members, the light electric vehicles (LEM for short). These only need a simple socket to charge them overnight, so that the LEMnet also shows the locations of inns that cooperate with the owners of electric vehicles.
With the renaissance of electric cars , the LEMnet database developed into a central overview of charging stations in Europe with several thousand locations where charging stations and sockets for e-mobiles are accessible. The operators of commercial charging stations also report their locations to the LEMnet database, and in 2012 the association is already cooperating with 30 providers. On March 26, 2012, a reorganization was decided in Jena, which transfers the operation of the LEMnet database to an independent association, LEMnet Europe eV , which, in addition to Park & Charge, is also supported by the E-Mobility Cluster cooperation in Central Germany. The LEMnet has been operated by LEMnet Europe since 2013.
| time | Number of entries |
|---|---|
| until 2007 | 600 |
| until 2010 | 2800 |
| March 2012 | 3600 |
| October 2014 | 7200 |
Individual evidence
- ↑ Park & Charge website
- ↑ News. Retrieved February 4, 2020 .
- ↑ LEMnet website
- ↑ Charging and refueling RiParTI . InfoVEL Mendrisio. Archived from the original on September 7, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
- ↑ a b LEMnet Europe eV founded. . Press release. March 27, 2012. Archived from the original on July 1, 2013. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 31, 2012.
- ↑ Development of the charging station infrastructure in the DACH region using the example of the LEMnet community . October 29, 2014. Retrieved January 16, 2015.
