Fastned marks major turnover increase for Q3
Dutch fast-charging provider Fastned has reported a 96 per cent increase in turnover in the third quarter compared to Q3 2020. Fastned is also considering switching to a “more dynamic pricing strategy” to reflect pricing trends in the European market.
While Fastned turned over around €1.6 million in the period from the beginning of July to the end of September in 2020, this year it has already turned over €3.2 million, according to the Dutch company’s statement. “The third quarter results were achieved on the back of strong electric vehicle sales across all markets in which Fastned is active,” Fastned writes in this regard. “Traffic levels and the demand for charging were still affected by Corona measures.”
Other interesting key figures include: 5.5 GWh of energy was charged at Fastned stations in Q3, up 89 per cent on Q3 2020, a figure also linked to the 4,324 tonnes of CO2 avoided and the 27.5 million kilometres travelled electrically, also up 89 per cent. Fastned reports the number of active customers in the quarter at 88,830 (+88 per cent). These customers started 282,000 charging processes, which corresponds to an increase of 66 per cent – so more energy is drawn per charging process. On average, 19.5 kWh were used per charging process, compared to 18.2 kWh in the first half of the year. Specifically, from January to the end of June, 7.6 GWh were delivered; in the third quarter alone, 5.5 GWh were delivered.
During the third quarter of 2021, Fastned added 21 fast-charging stations to its network, bringing the total to 164 charging stations in five countries. Fastned opened 14 stations in the Netherlands (including the retrofit of eleven MisterGreen locations), four stations in Germany, two stations in Belgium and one station in the UK. The total number of charging stations increased by 78 in the third quarter to now 622, meaning Fastned now has an average of 3.8 charging stations per location, up from 3.5 at the end of 2020.
“I’m very happy that we were able to almost double our revenues versus the same quarter last year. And that we are slowly returning to the pre-Corona situation: with almost every day being a new record day. More importantly, the company is really accelerating in the wake of our successful 150 million euro capital raise last February,” says Michiel Langezaal, CEO of Fastned. “In just 6 months we were able to welcome 38 new colleagues while maintaining a very high talent density, bringing the total up to 100 employees currently. And these people are already helping to accelerate things such as subscribing to tenders in France, scaling up the construction of stations and elevating our data and tech backbone.”
Fastned has also started constructing charging stations in France, becoming the sixth country in the network. By the end of the year, nine fast-charging hubs are expected to be in operation in France.
These sites should also help Fastned reach its self-imposed target of 45 new sites in 2021 – with the 12 sites from the first half of the year and the 21 in Q3, 33 new stations have been added so far. “Given the current construction projects”, Fastned says it sees the potential to build as many as 55 stations. By the end of the year, between 176 and 186 stations with 750 to 800 charging columns should be in operation.
But: At the up to 55 new stations, only 160 instead of the previously planned 200 charging columns are to be built – at least for the time being. This new target is “This as a result of higher focus on station construction, grid connection delivery delays and the change to a more encompassing stations upgrade plan in Germany, to be implemented in Q1 2022”.
According to Fastned, the currently rising wholesale prices for electricity are not yet having a full impact, as they have “partially hedged against this increase by selling renewable energy credits”. However, the Dutch are not entirely unimpressed by the price development. They are currently considering switching to a more dynamic pricing strategy to reflect price trends in the European wholesale electricity market (and to keep the gross margin per kWh in line with previous quarters)”. However, details of this are not yet known.
Should Fastned take this step, prices for charging electricity may rise and fall with purchase prices. How dynamic the pricing model will be – i.e. how often the prices will be adjusted – is not yet known.
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