Kathmandu: Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has signed an agreement with a Chinese contractor for the supply, delivery, installation, testing, commissioning, operation and maintenance of electric vehicle charging stations at 50 locations in the country’s seven provinces.

NEA's Electric Vehicles Charging Infrastructure Development Project and Wanbang Digital Energy Corporation Limited, Jiangsu, China signed a contract of Rs 367.955 million excluding VAT. The contract has been signed to complete the construction of charging stations within a year with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank.

NEA Spokesperson Madan Timsina said that the contractor company will take care of the maintenance of the charging stations for the next five years once they come into operation. He added that 142 KW capacity charger, 50 kVA transformer for power supply and online billing system will be installed in each charging station.

The charging station will have 60/60 kW DC and 22 kW AC chargers for fast charging. From this, three vehicles including a big bus can be charged simultaneously.

The charging station software will be kept in the data center of NEA to serve more than 300 chargers. All 50 stations will be controlled from Kathmandu. After charging the vehicle, the customer will be able to pay the bill through a QR code and mobile app.

Charging stations will be located on main highways, bus parks and major cities. There will be 7 charging stations in Kathmandu Valley.