Fortum Charge & Drive and OP Financial Group are joining forces to build 100 electric car charging stations in different parts of Finland. To begin with, they have agreed to introduce charging stations to a total of about 80 locations. This means that the number of public charging stations in Finland will increase by about a third. The purpose of this partnership is to have a charging station in the vicinity of as many OP cooperative banks as possible.
OP’s new strategy is to expand from the field of pure financial operations to provide a diversity of services. One of OP’s new focus areas is mobility. The OP Kulku service launched in late 2016 was the first step in OP Mobility services. This offers consumers and businesses a chance to start using an electric car at a monthly fee without all the trouble related to car ownership. The Kulku service will be expanded later in 2017 from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area to include several other Finnish cities.
“Promoting the use of electric cars by offering more charging stations is an excellent way for OP Financial Group to carry out our social role at a local level. We want to promote the use of electric cars and Finland and to make it easier by means of new services. By having charging stations in the vicinity of OP cooperative banks will also help the Kulku service expand,” says Executive Vice President Harri Nummela, who is in charge of OP Financial Group’s digital business and new businesses.
Fortum has wide experience in installing charging stations and operating charging networks. Services for electric traffic are part of Fortum’s new business and digital services development.
The new charging stations built in the vicinity of OP cooperative banks will be part of the Fortum Charge & Drive network. The Nordic network already consists of more than 1,200 charging stations, of which 450 are quick chargers. Finland has more than 90 Charge & Drive stations, of which 35 are quick chargers (50 kW). Fortum is a market leader of charging services for electric cars in Norway, which is leading the way in the use of electric cars, with more than 130,000 registered electric cars. Norway has the highest number of electric cars per capita.
“This is the time to raise the electric car charging network to a new level also in Finland. The cooperation with OP is a prime example of how we can promote electric cars together in Finland. This will also help Finland to achieve its target of having 250,000 electric cars on Finnish roads by 2030,” says Rami Syväri, Head of International Sales & Business Development at Fortum Charge & Drive.
The building of charging stations near OP cooperative bank branch offices will begin in late May. The agreed 100 charging stations in 80 locations will be available to customers by the end of the year. The objective is to continue the cooperation to even more locations.
Left: number of charging stations in Finland 4/2017. Right: number of charging stations in Finland after installation of OP's and Fortum's new stations.
Further information and interview requests:
Fortum
Rami Syväri, Fortum Charge & Drive, Head of Development, tel. +358 (0)40 709 5566, rami [dot] syvari [at] fortum [dot] com (rami[dot]syvari[at]fortum[dot]com)
Tero Era, Fortum Group Communications, tel. +358 (0)50 541 6337, tero [dot] era [at] fortum [dot] com (tero[dot]era[at]fortum[dot]com)
OP
Harri Nummela, Executive Vice President, in charge of OP Financial Group’s digital business and new businesses
Sonja Heikkilä, Program director, Mobility services
Any requests for interviews via OP Communications, tel. +358 (0)50 523 9904, viestinta [at] op [dot] fi (viestinta[at]op[dot]fi) (weekdays 7.00 a.m. to 7.30 p.m.)
Fortum
Fortum is a leading clean-energy company that provides its customers with electricity, heating and cooling as well as smart solutions to improve resource efficiency. We want to engage our customers and society to join the change for a cleaner world. We employ some 8,000 professionals in the Nordic and Baltic countries, Russia, Poland and India, and 62% of our electricity generation is CO2 free. In 2016, our sales were EUR 3.6 billion. Fortum's share is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki. www.fortum.com
Fortum Charge & Drive
Fortum Charge & Drive is a pioneer in electric vehicle charging and has a network of 1200 affiliated smart chargers in the Nordic countries. Charge & Drive aims to respond to an increasing global demand in emobility, by providing world-class cloud solutions. Charge & Drive Cloud provides an intuitive end-user interface and a comprehensive back-end system that supports Charge Point Operators in the remote management of Charging Stations. www.fortum.com/chargedrive
OP Financial Group
OP Financial Group is Finland's largest financial services group whose mission is to create sustainable prosperity, security and wellbeing for its owner-customers and in its operating region by means of its strong capital base and efficiency. OP Financial Group consists of about 170 member cooperative banks, its central cooperative OP Cooperative, and the latter's subsidiaries and affiliates. The Group has a staff of 12,000 and 1.7 million owner-customers and 4.3 million customers. www.op.fi
From left: Rami Syväri (Fortum) and Sonja Heikkilä (OP)