Listed firm Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation will offer policy recommendations to the Department on Energy (DOE) on the institutionalization of standards that could stimulate eventual mass-scale rollout of electric vehicle chargers (EVCs) in the country.

PSPC President and Chief Executive Officer Lorelie Q. Osial indicated that the all-inclusive goal of the pact they have entered with the DOE is “to help the government in terms of potential standards and policy recommendations.”

She qualified that as the pilot project has not started yet, there are not too many answers that the company can dangle at this point, “but we know that we definitely have something to offer because we have experience globally which puts us in a good position to work with the government on this one.”

Osial said PSPC can leverage on the experience and learnings of its peers from the global network of parent firm Royal Dutch Shell – wherein they already deployed more than 100,000 EV chargers in various energy markets worldwide.

“As part of our powering progress strategy, EVC is something that we have a lot of experience – right now, we have over 100,000 EV chargers globally,” she reiterated.

The PSPC executive added “we have a lot of learnings and experience on the technology that we can bring to the Philippines, that’s why even if right now we’re still at the beginning in that sense, we are prepared and ready for the Filipinos.”

Beyond targeted standards and policy recommendations, one crucial element of the covenant that Shell is pursuing with the DOE is to power the EVCs with renewable energy – that way, they can concretize the decarbonization goal of the country’s shift to electric mobility.

“We’re looking at it from the entire value chain, therefore, when it comes to EVCs, we’re looking at the part of supply, part of installation and operations. And then in terms of electricity, powering that with renewable sources,” she stressed.

The supply of RE-generated power to the targeted pilot EVC station to be integrated in the study being pursued with DOE will be drawn from the portfolio of Shell Energy Philippines (SEPH), the retail electricity business unit of the company.

In the Philippine market, Osial noted that Shell currently has seven EV chargers that are of the alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC) sphere of technologies – and such include the fast-charger installed at the “sustainability-first mover” mobility station of Shell in Mamplasan.

As designed, a DC charger has the converter inside the EVC, hence, that enables faster charging of EV fleets – it is considered a breakthrough on the EV charging infrastructure development and this is often deployed at public charging stations and highways.

Conversely, for AC chargers, the converter is built inside the car and they require longer time of loading; thus, these are often the chargers installed in the homes or place of work of the car buyers or EV owners because they often stay longer in these locations.