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Killarney is one of 52 locations nationwide and the only one in Kerry that will get additional electric vehicle charging points this year.

Tesco Ireland, in partnership with ESB, has announced that an 18-county, 52-town roll out will commence in early 2020 with completion expected by the autumn.

The two Killarney charge points will be installed at Tesco’s Deerpark outlet.

The new electric vehicle charging sites will allow its customers to easily charge their EVs conveniently while shopping.

The new ESB chargers will be 22kW dual chargers providing charging capacity to two vehicles simultaneously. The chargers will be capable of providing up to 145km of driving range in 60 minutes.

The 52 chargers will be included on ESB’s nationwide charge point map to help customers find their closest charging point and allow customers to start and stop transactions using the ESB app.

“At Tesco we recognise that a growing number of our customers who visit our stores are using electric vehicles,” Kari Daniels, Tesco CEO, said.

“With all our electricity already coming from renewable sources across our network we want to support our customers with convenience-based charging. Partnering with ESB installing these charging sites nationwide will help the Government’s Climate Action Plan and our aim as a business to become a zero-carbon retailer by 2050.”

There are currently over 15,000 electric vehicles on Irish roads, with 4,755 of these registered to date in 2019, representing an increase of 142% on 2018 figures. It is expected that sales will at least double in 2020 bolstered by the fact that the biggest selling EVs now have a driving range of 400 to 500km.