Deep within Europe’s largest covered urban fast-charging station

While large fast-charging stations for electric cars are common on highway rest stops, they are extremely rare in city centers. Despite enormous technical challenges, the Corsican network E-Motum has established a large station with 18 fast chargers in an underground parking lot in Paris’s 14th arrondissement. We visited the backrooms of this urban hub, one of the largest in Europe.

Walking down Rue Friant in the capital’s 14th arrondissement, nothing suggests that this is home to one of Europe’s largest urban charging stations. There are no photovoltaic canopies, no large awnings in the colors of an energy giant, nor any LED-lit totems to signal the presence of this massive facility dedicated to electric cars. The site is rather unassuming.

Yet on the ground floor of the building at 36-38, what appears to be an ordinary parking lot houses 18 200 kW DC fast chargers, providing 36 charging points, along with three 22 kW AC chargers. The connected electrical capacity here amounts to 3,200 kW. Right in the city center. In an electric arc furnace, such power would be enough to melt eight tons of steel. Electric vehicle users who come here to charge don’t think about it, but behind the chargers lies a complex installation that required extensive and costly work.