Jordan wants to boost electric vehicle adoption by building solar charging stations

The plan is for 3,000 charging stations to blanket the country, with the first 11 already set to be installed in the capital of Amman.

1/29/15 4:00 am chumakdenis 1

Jordan may soon join the list of countries that heavily promote electric vehicles.

Located between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Jordan isn't generally thought of in connection with electric cars, but its government hopes to change that with a combination of incentives and infrastructure buildup.

Supported by country

The country will waive import tariffs in electric vehicles and spend $120 million to install a network of solar-powered charging stations, according to a recent Navigant Research blog post.

Big plans

The plan is for 3,000 charging stations to blanket the country, with the first 11 already set to be installed in the capital of Amman.

The first stations will likely be located at shopping malls, tourist destinations and public parking lots, but to build a truly comprehensive network additional stations will have to be installed in lower-traffic areas as well eventually.

Some of the charging stations will have solar canopies, while others will get their energy from offsite solar farms. Battery packs will be used to store excess energy.

Funded through USAID Jordan Competitiveness Program

The network will be built by a consortium of companies and funded through the USAID Jordan Competitiveness Program.

The Jordanian government views the promotion of electric cars as a sensible economic policy.

AllCell opinion

AllCell’s CEO, Said Al-Hallaj commented, “This is a great step in our effort to launch the deployment phase
of a network of 3,000 EV charging stations backed by 30MWp solar PV systems”.
Jordan is ideally suited to adopt electric vehicles as it imports 97% of its energy, but has abundant solar
resources. This program is part of a larger government initiative to increase the presence of solar energy
and reduce reliance upon imported energy.