McDonald's and Vattenfall's Dutch subsidiary Nuon signed an agreement to install 168 fast-charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs) at all McDonald's locations with a McDrive in the Netherlands, Nuon announced Tuesday.
The first station will be installed at the end of 2018, after which another 167 charging stations will be installed in stages with two charging points, according to a press release from the energy company.
'The collaboration allows electric drivers to be able to charge their car in the entire country within half an hour with green electricity coming from Dutch windmills,' the statement said.
Bas Klaassen, director of development, real estate and construction at McDonald's, said this agreement was an important step towards making their restaurants more environmentally sustainable.
'We use our scale to work towards climate-neutral construction, operation and logistics. The fast-charging stations run entirely on green electricity,' Klaassen added.
Pieter van Ommeren, director of emobility at Nuon/Vattenfall, said Nuon and Vattenfall want to make fossil-free living possible, at home, at work and on the road.
'That is why we have been active in electric transport for almost 10 years, both public, at home and at companies. The fact that we can now combine our expertise with the scale of McDonald's gives the development of electric transport in the Netherlands a huge boost,' he said.
According to the statement, the Netherlands is getting more and more fully electric cars, with a growing need for fast-charging points.
Citing CBS (Statistics Netherlands) figures, it said the number of electric vehicles on the road increased by 60 percent on Jan. 1 compared to the previous year, hitting more than 22,000.
According to the press release, Nuon manages over 7,000 charge points throughout the Netherlands and is the market leader in the field of public charging.
'At our public charging points, more than 90,000 charging sessions take place every month, accounting for 10 gigawatt-hours of green electricity and 50 million zero-emission kilometers,' it said.
Swedish energy giant Vattenfall announced in February 2017 that it wanted to switch its entire fleet to electric vehicles. In Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany, more than 3,500 passenger cars and commercial vehicles - including 750 in the Netherlands - will be replaced by electrical alternatives over a period of five years.
By Hale Turkes
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr