The Sagunto gigafactory has opened a ban to attract more foreign investment to the Community of Valencia and, if possible, to the axis connecting the autonomous community with Madrid. In order to get multinational companies to take care of this connection, it is necessary to adapt the infrastructure first. And one of the weaknesses of this center is the lack of charging points. Entrepreneurs demand greater agility in setting up a network of charging points between Madrid and Valencia accelerating the decarbonisation of both passenger and freight transport and thus Get the long-awaited green broker sticker requested by foreign companies. “The Madrid-Valencia corridor should be very serious about being a green corridor because they will be asking us more and more,” said Aurelio Martínez, president of the Port of Valencia, in his speech at the I Madrid-Valencia Community. Business Summit.
Spain had 10,480 chargers at the end of 2021, representing 3.4% of the total European charging network. Only 10 of them are located on the Autovía del Mediterráneo highway, which connects Valencia with Madrid. To reach the goal of having a charger every 60 kilometers by 2026, set by the European Union “valid distribution rate must be multiplied by 10“As Spain currently has less than 1% of the points it should receive in 2030,” said Yolanda Atienzar, head of the CEV Transport Logistics Commission. The government has proposed an investment of $1,650 million to install 598 Electrolinera on Spanish roads.
“Electricity grid ready to deploy charging points“If the electric vehicle is the solution, it must reach every part of the region,” said Marina Serrano, President of AELEC. As Jesús Alonso, head of Ford Spain, noted, “in two years there will be more electric vehicles in Europe than any other type,” so there is a need to follow the example of countries like Norway, where chargers replace dispensers at gas stations.
“We can’t have more than 50 highway sections without fast charging points.He underlined, while being optimistic: “Within 10 years, there will be charging points at all parking points.” Of course, in addition to infrastructure and offering, consumers must also opt for these tools because since then 86% of Demand comes from individuals. That’s why they make an estimate from AELEC. Annual investment of 1,100 to 2,000 million euros to stimulate the purchase of electric vehicles in Spain.
Railway, a sustainable solution
The green corridor label will add more value to an axis that will be connected to the Mediterranean Corridor. Spain is a country that already accounts for 30% of its GDP, but despite the efforts of companies to reduce its emissions, sustainability is still insufficient. “There are currently electric fleets being stopped in garages because there are no charging points,” said Francisco Aranda, head of UNO logistics employers. Therefore, one solution is to put trucks on trains, an alternative that will come into effect in the second quarter of 2023 in the form of a rail highway between Madrid and the Port of Valencia.
But trains are struggling to channel demand transfer from the road. “Railway dominates the passenger area It is primarily because of the introduction of AVE,” said Francisco Pérez, IVIE’s research director and professor emeritus at the University of Valencia.
While the use of trains for goods in Spain is 4%, the reality is that since the Port of Valencia is “the port of Madrid”, as Martínez puts it, most of the rail port traffic is concentrated on the Madrid-Valencia Community axis. remembered. Specifically, according to data provided by the Conexia Foundation, 91% of the containers handled at the Madrid dry port come from Valencia, with up to 8.8 million tons crossing the freight corridor between the two autonomies in 2017.
This is why Aranda points to possible possibilities. saturation where the connection can be damaged in the short term because the roads between the two communities are shared between passengers and goods. We have a lot of room to grow on the axis,” he said. Same way, “Intermodality is a weapon” To emit less emissions, as pointed out by Carlos Bertomeu, president of Iryo and Air Nostrum. Multinational companies will be interested in this corridor if the links in the two areas and the cooperation between all modes of transport are developed. “Companies adhere to green corridors and eventually there will be a tendency to differentiate between those who do and those who do not,” said Antonio Arias, vice president of Vectalia.