Iberdrola reaffirms its commitment to promoting innovation in sustainable mobility by becoming the first company to acquire the ‘Hypernova’ super-fast public chargers developed by Wallbox, the European leader in charging solutions for electric vehicles. The electricity company will acquire the first units as part of an agreement for the purchase of 10,000 chargers.
The Chairman of the Iberdrola group, Ignacio Galán, announced this purchase during the inauguration ceremony of the new Wallbox plant in the Zona Franca of Barcelona, which was attended by Reyes Maroto, Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism; Pere Aragonés, President of the Generalitat de Catalunya; Ada Colau, Mayor of Barcelona; Pere Navarro, Director General of Traffic; and Nuria Marín, President of the Barcelona Provincial Council, as well as the CEO of Wallbox, Enric Asunción.
Ignacio Galán highlighted the advantages of collaboration between consolidated business projects and emerging companies. Iberdrola was the first institutional shareholder to back Wallbox in 2019 and is currently its main non-founding shareholder, with 10% of its capital. It was also the first company to acquire its domestic ‘Pulsar’ and public ‘Supernova’ charging points, as well as facilitating its international expansion with orders in other countries through its subsidiaries.
In total, over the last three years Iberdrola has made purchases from Wallbox worth almost 10 million euros for the acquisition of around 20,000 chargers.
“The multiplication of these charging points in our geography is possible thanks to the increased investment in our electricity grids”, explained Ignacio Galán. In fact, the Iberdrola group plans to allocate more than €1.5 billion to electricity grids in Spain between 2022 and 2024.
In addition, Iberdrola and Wallbox have an agreement to produce, consume and reuse 100% of the energy produced by its plant and offices located in Barcelona’s Zona Franca. The electricity company will install a solar self-consumption plant at the Wallbox factory that will produce 1,500 MWh/year, equivalent to the consumption of 500 homes.
Potential of the energy transition for industrial transformation
The Chairman of Iberdrola also highlighted the alliance between Iberdrola and Wallbox as an example of the “potential of investments in energy transition to transform our industrial fabric and generate quality employment. At Iberdrola, we are proud to know that we support, with our activity and purchases from our suppliers, a total of 80,000 jobs in Spain and 400,000 worldwide”.
Galán insisted on Iberdrola’s commitment to continue “investing in the long term to make this new, cleaner and more self-sufficient energy model a reality. A model aligned with the energy policy and the framework established by the European Union, which is committed to accelerating this unprecedented transformation through stable and incentivising regulation, in order to create progress, wealth and development”.
The Iberdrola group is participating in the capital of Wallbox through its international start-up programme PERSEO and within the framework of its Sustainable Mobility Plan which, with an investment of €150 million, envisages the installation of around 150,000 high-efficiency charging points in homes and businesses, as well as on urban roads, in cities and on major motorways.
PERSEO – which has a fund of €125 million – aims to facilitate the Iberdrola group’s access to the technologies of the future and foster the creation and development of a global and dynamic ecosystem of technological and entrepreneurial companies in the electricity sector.
