Fastned, the Dutch fast-charging network that is already present in several European countries, reports positive results for 2020 year, despite the COVID-19 impact on travel and the demand for charging.
The company managed to increase its revenues and the volume of electricity delivered, as well as the number of stations and chargers.
Because of the large investments in the expansion, the net loss remains high, at about €12.4 million ($14.8 million), which is close to two times bigger than the revenues. It will hardly change we guess, as the company would like to add hundreds, if not thousands of additional chargers.
For 2020 Fastned reports (vs 2019):
- Revenue related to charging: €6.3 million (up 40%), on average €0.57/kWh (vs €0.58)
Total Revenues: €6.9 million (+37%)
including revenues from station construction as part of service concessions - Total Net Loss: €12.4 million (+3%)
- Volume: 11 GWh (+39%), on average customers used 206 kWh/customer (vs 186 kWh)
- Active customers: 53,309 (+25%), on average spent €118/customer (vs €105)
As of the end of the year, the network has expanded by 17 new stations (131 total), including the first stations in Belgium and Switzerland. Fastned has also installed new or higher capacity chargers at existing stations.
- Number of stations: 131 (vs 114)
- Number of chargers: 456 (vs 297)
- The average number of chargers per station: 3.5 (vs 2.6)
The average revenue per single station was at over €48,000 per year (up 20% year-over-year), by delivering some 84 MWh of electricity (up 20% year-over-year).
Considering the number of 0.6 million charging sessions we can also estimate the average outcome:
- about €10.5 of revenue per session (vs €9)
- about 18.3 kWh per session (vs 16 kWh)
- about 11.3 sessions per customer per year (vs 12)
Fastned results - 2020
In its message to shareholders, Fastned CEO Michiel Langezaal said that "I can tell from experience that building a charging network is not a walk in the park."
The charging infrastructure business is truly challenging, but with the increase of charging power and the number of chargers/EVs, it starts to remind the conventional refueling station model a little bit, which should gradually make it easier for charging networks. Currently, it's a very early stage of expansion that requires big investments.
For those who are more interested in the viability of the chargers, here are some of the highlights released by Fastned:
- "Q4 2020 time based utilisation of the network was also negatively affected by lockdown measures, averaging out at 7.6% (2019: 9.9%). Note that Fastned grew the number of chargers significantly in anticipation of post-Corona demand, which also reduces the average utilisation, but leaves ample room for further growth once lockdown measures are lifted.
- Station level economics remained positive amidst the pandemic, proving the resilience of the business case. Even at a still very low BEV adoption (c. 1.5% in Q4 2020 in Fastned’s key markets) and with Corona related lockdown restrictions reducing traffic volumes, the average station showed a 4.1% Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) based on Q4 2020 annualised revenues (6.6% in Q4 2019 and -2.8% in Q4 2018). Fastned expects this to continue to improve as a result of continued growth in BEV adoption resulting in higher station utilisation.
- Network operation costs per station increased from 30.8 to 34.3 thousand euro due to higher grid fees resulting from the increasing number of chargers being installed per location and larger grid connections being installed to accommodate anticipated charging demand growth. Network operation costs per charger slightly decreased. Despite this, the increase in revenues and significant operational leverage intrinsic in Fastned’s business model led to an increase in the operational EBITDA per station of 28% to 6.9 thousand euro; total operational EBITDA was up 60% YoY in 2020.
- Network expansion costs increased from 3.8 million euro to 4.7 million euro due to the increased activity in station construction, upgrading existing stations, new location acquisition and software development."
See also
Full report can be found here.
