Ionity charging network

So are the Kennedy center nearish Belfast and Looney Toons Applegreen outside Waterford the only confirmed sites so far?

Or has anyone spotted planning permission for another site?

Presumably they'll also have to bring the other sites up to scratch, City North in particular is in dire need of some more chargers

Oh yes, that confirms it for sure

I wonder will it go toward Waterford councils target by 1 or 6, considering the prices they charge and the fact that a leaf driver will be unable to charge at all it would be a stretch to call it anything at all lol

There's a picture of the potential chargers in the supporting documents

Definitely looks like an Ionity halo light on top

Someone posted in the New Charger thread of a new install going in in Applegreen in Waterford.

Yeah that seems to be Ionity, probably not part of the county council plan

Possibly another site has popped up in the planning portal

Includes 6 EV chargers, doesn't say Ionity anywhere and no-one has included a picture of the chargers this time

But the location very roughly matches the map, and 6 chargers is a fairly distinctive number

It seems a slightly bizarre location, the N4 isn't the quietest road in the country, but it isn't the busiest either

If it goes ahead then the Northwest isn't starting to look like such a wasteland for charging

Yeah I'm impressed that Ionity (or anyone) are opening a hub there, it opens up a big section of Ireland for EVs and between it, Galway (probably Athenry from the map) and a location in Clare it kind of creates a charging corridor along the west of Ireland

I'd always assumed the big providers literally wouldn't touch the west and it would be left up to Ecars

It is noticeable that this like seems pretty locked to 6 chargers without space to upgrade to 12 like some of the other sites, so it's setup to be a "small" site by Ionity standards

Yeah it seems like finally the charging network is starting to move in the right direction.... from all the players..

The only issue is we need to see exponential growth almost in line with the exponential growth in sales...

At this rate NI is going overtake ROI for chargers

Great to finally see things taking off, between Ionity expanding, Applegreen installing chargers at breakneck speed, and Ecars demonstrating unexpected competence with their last few sites things are looking up

Still waiting on 3 Ionity sites to be announced here down south; Galway, Cork and Limerick/Tipperary. Haven't seen anything in the planning lists so I'm guessing they're still looking for sites

Here is from plugshare

Also 2 "official" NI "now building"

I thought I'd posted it here!! maybe it was in another thread!!

edit:: oooh, they look much nicer painted....

This is the thing now with this size of expansion/new install that's gonna be fun with ESBN... units could be in for ages before they actually get turned on!! (Athenry Supercharger is open 15 months now and still only at 50% capacity...because.... awaiting ESBN...)

I'd wager that a car will not be charged on one of these new chargers until at least 2024.

I guess time will tell, there can be plenty of instances where the equipment is installed but not fully commissioned and waiting on ESBN to sign off

But this isn't a new connection, it's an upgrade. Ionity already had the existing chargers so they could easily wait for the grid connection to be upgraded before installing the new ones

Maybe the chargers arrived before the grid connection was done and Ionity didn't want to let them gather dust, but they'd probably have shoved them in Kill if that was the case since that's likely the busier site and probably less work to upgrade the connection

That or they were worried the units would get nicked for a hub in a different country

AFAIK Ionity is actually divided into different companies for each country, although I imagine most of them are just a shell company to give them a local presence

I think Ionity here is Ionity UK and Ireland, given most of the expansion plans published also show the UK expansion

So if I was running the Ireland division and just got 4 shiny new chargers I'd be tempted not to leave them sitting on pallets in case Ionity Germany or wherever calls dibs on them

It's more difficult to move them when they're stuck to the ground 😁

Although, having said that Applegreen chargers seem to move around more than the cars they charge 😂

It was 20 weeks wait time last year for domestic ESBN works. Joe Duffy did a segment on it, young couples doing their houses up then sleeping in a car over the Christmas as newly renovated houses sat without electricity for months.

It's a culture of not giving a f*ck more so than understaffing.

I agree, I've yet to see an ESB engineer on the young side of 35

I assume there's some extra training above a typical electrician apprenticeship to work at ESBN. I certainly wouldn't trust a 2nd year apprentice to work on a 38kV transformer without setting himself on fire

They probably need a recruiting drive, but even if they do they're facing the same pressures as every other sector. At the end of the day, it's a pretty crap job, you're up and down the country constantly doing small jobs everywhere

Even if the benefits and job security are decent, I suspect the pay isn't fantastic. A lot of people look at that and take the job that pays a bit less but is a lot simpler

They could try hiring internationally, plenty of experienced engineers and electricians elsewhere. But most of them look at the housing situation, and wonderful videos like those lads in Navan attacking the council workers, and look somewhere more welcoming

Yeah but the trick is where the starting salaries are at. They're probably not bad, but they probably aren't great either considering the amount of day to day hassle involved

If you're a newly qualified electrician, working on sites is probably easier because you'll be going to the same place for several weeks at least instead of not knowing where you're off to tomorrow

Anyone tried using Shell Recharge with Ionity

Tried it today in City North with the app and the results were pretty disappointing, the app wasn't able to start the charger after about 20 attempts

I ordered the free card as well so we'll see how that goes

Glad I did the test run now so I found the issues before I needed a charge

Also tried the Ionity app, it actually worked on the second attempt. First attempt was with the QR code, that failed. Second attempt was by selecting the charger on the map and that worked

They only took a €1 deposit, much better than the €80 or so it was a year or two ago

Can someone explain why there's two QR codes on the chargers? There's one for direct pay which I used to start the charger, the other one is for members or something 🤷‍♂️