After the announcement dated October 2023 on the creation of IPlanet, a joint venture between Italiana Petroli and Macquarie Capital, we found traces of the first concrete project for a station high power charging station at an IP-owned service area.
by Luca Palestini
We often hear it repeated, a few weeks before the European elections, that “Nobody wants electric anymore” or that “car companies are backtracking on electrification”. So I confess that I half jumped on my seat when I came across this fortuitous discovery.
I was exploring the SUAP portal, the One-Stop Shop for Productive Activities, when my eye fell on a practice registered on 01/31/2024.
I remembered that Vaielettrico had already reported the announcement of the birth of joint ventures Between Italian Petroleum And Macquarie Capital for the creation of IPlanet, a company that will take care of electrify IP-branded refueling stations on urban and extra-urban roads. But I admit I thought “until I see, I don’t believe”. When certain news comes from those who have made fossil fuels their core business, the thought of green-washing is always lurking.
And in this case it really seems like that from the announcement we moved on to the facts. In just three months. The documentation filed states verbatim: Project for photovoltaic system installation And area for charging electric vehicles consisting of a photovoltaic shelter, electric charging stations power 400 kW/each. and related car stalls, to be built at the plant fuel distribution SS80 Teramo-Mare.
A Big Oil that “converts” to electric? Does Teramo think it’s Oslo? No, more simply the world moves forwarddespite the detractors and the words of certain politicians who play a role for mere electoral calculation, while theindustry proceeds along the path of electrification, which is also the only one that will allow economic returns to be kept intact.
All this was already well described in a 2019 report created by the American consultancy firm Boston Consulting Group on the impact of electrification in service stations. The report ends with a consideration that sounds like a warning, starting from the title of the last paragraph: “The imperative for change”:
The imperative for change
“As the future begins to take definite shape _ it is read _, the implications for fuel retailers are clear and serious. Fuel retailers no longer have the luxury of waiting and seeing what happens. Rather, they must move now to take advantage of digital ed technology
expand into adjacent, rapidly growing value pools. In markets where changes are most dramatic, stay relevant will require a complete overhaul of the service station. A path already successfully undertaken abroad where companies such as Shell and Total have long since begun to include electric charging in the offer of their traditional service stations“.
While Norway is often taken as an example as an electrification experiment, theItaly instead it appears as reverse experiment: let’s see how long we can resist trying to slow down the electrification that is progressing throughout the rest of the world.
May the IP service station on the SS80 Teramo-mare be a sign of normalization?
