SK Broadband, NICE (National Information & Credit Evaluation) Group and Parking Cloud are companies that will be newly participating in the national charging business. Large corporations are entering the subsidy market as demand for EVs increases and the national budget for supplying chargers doubles from last year.
According to the industry on the 25th, SK Broadband, Parking Cloud of NHN affiliate, and NICE Charger of NICE Group's charging business started to secure charging sites through outsourcing companies starting this month. LG HelloVision and Korea Electric Vehicle Charging Service were two large corporations participating the government subsidy project, but now it increased to five corporations.
It is reported that these companies have already secured thousands of subsidy applications according to the Ministry of Environment's charging subsidy fund criteria.
SK Broadband will start a charging business linked to cable broadcasting service subscribers such as apartments. Utilizing its know-hows, NICE Charger will operate unmanned ATMs across the country to launch a charging business centered on apartments. Parking Cloud will expand the charging service related to the parking infrastructure in operation.
Starting late for the national charging service industry, these corporations are actively targeting the market by providing the highest level of operating fees for securing charging sites in the industry.
SK Broadband will pay KRW 900,000 and KRW 500,000 for construction and sales agency commission, respectively. NICE Charger will provide KRW 3 million per charger, which is the highest payment in the industry. NICE Charger is making an unconventional move by supporting all chargers, construction costs, and operating fees.
The Ministry of Environment will self-evaluate both existing national charging companies and the new companies, and select 25 charging companies in June. The selected companies will receive an average of KRW 1.2 million to 1.4 million in government subsidies on the number of charging site.
The budget for this year's charger subsidy project is KRW 60.5 billion, which is more than double of last year's KRW 24 billion. More than 30,000 slow (7·11kW) chargers will be distributed to common facilities such as apartments nationwide.
By Staff Reporter Taejun Park (gaius@etnews.com)