--- title: "EV Charging in Coolock Village: Where Things Stand | Coolock Village" description: "There are zero public EV chargers within walking distance of Coolock Village. The grid is under strain. Here is what we know and what residents can do." canonical_url: "https://coolockvillage.ie/news/ev-charging/" template: "raw-page" schema_type: "NewsArticle" date_published: "2025-02-19T00:00:00.000Z" date_modified: "2025-02-19T00:00:00.000Z" --- Coolock Village Dublin 5 Ireland info@coolockvillage.ie Community-led civic action, local business, reporting, and regeneration hub for Coolock Village, Dublin 5. coolockvillage.ie www.facebook.com www.instagram.com www.wikidata.org Permalink to EV Charging in Coolock Village: Where Things Stand news Back to Updates - - Share News / 19 February 2025 / 5 min read # EV Charging in Coolock Village: Where Things Stand There are zero public EV chargers within walking distance of Coolock Village. The grid is under strain. Here is what we know and what residents can do. Author Coolock Village Regeneration Project Updated 19 February 2025 Discussion Open Bottom line ## Article summary There are zero public EV chargers within walking distance of Coolock Village. The grid is under strain. Here is what we know and what residents can do. If you live in Coolock Village and own, or are considering, an electric vehicle, there is a basic problem: you have nowhere to charge it. Zero Public Chargers There is no public EV charger on Main Street, on any of the surrounding residential roads, or at the Coolock Village Library car park. The nearest ESB eCars charge points are over a kilometre away, and even those are standard AC units. For a village where most homes are terraced houses with on-street parking and no driveways, this is not a minor inconvenience. It is a barrier to adoption. ## The national picture Ireland had over 2,400 public EV charging points as of 2024, the majority operated by ESB eCars. A €23 million investment programme, co-funded by the Climate Action Fund, was completed in October 2025. It delivered 55 charging hubs, upgraded 100 charge points, and replaced nearly 500 ageing units. That sounds like progress. But the coverage is uneven. The new hubs have gone to motorway service areas, shopping centres, and high-footfall locations. Residential areas, particularly on Dublin’s northside, have been underserved. ## The grid problem Even if ESB or another provider wanted to install chargers in Coolock Village tomorrow, there is a deeper issue: the electricity grid may not be ready. ESB Networks has publicly acknowledged “limited capacity” in parts of North and West Dublin. The Irish Times reported that some substations in the eastern Dublin region have reached zero per cent spare capacity, delaying thousands of new housing connections. - - Infrastructure Bottleneck Transformers that once took a year to procure now take up to three years due to global supply chain issues. ESB Networks has outlined a €13.4 billion capital investment programme for 2026-2030, but that timeline does not help anyone trying to charge a car today. ## Reliability complaints When the chargers do exist, they do not always work. In April 2024, Social Democrats Councillor Bill Clear described Ireland’s EV chargers as “insufficient or inadequately maintained.” In August 2025, a nationwide ESB eCars outage left users unable to start charging sessions even with remote assistance. By December 2025, users were reporting “EV sequencing error messages” on ESB high-power chargers, sometimes requiring them to physically hold the plug in place to initiate charging. ESB claims an average 98% uptime across its network. That may be true in aggregate, but it obscures the experience on the ground: when the two chargers nearest to your home are both down, uptime is zero. ## What this means for Coolock Village specifically Coolock Village sits on the R107 (Malahide Road), a regional road that carries heavy traffic between the city centre and the northern suburbs. It is a logical corridor for on-street charging infrastructure, a place where residents park overnight and where passing traffic could use rapid chargers during the day. But the village has not appeared in any published charging phase. There is no ESB eCars hub, no EasyGo charger, and no council-installed unit. The nearest rapid charger is at Northside Shopping Centre, a completely separate location. Many residents of Coolock Village live in terraced houses along Greencastle Road, Brookville Park, Casino Road, and similar streets where cars are parked on the road. There is no driveway to run a cable to. Home charging is physically impossible for a large proportion of households. Without public infrastructure, these residents are locked out of EV ownership regardless of whether they can afford the car itself. What about SEAI grants for home chargers? The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) offers grants to install EV chargers in apartment complexes: up to 90% for local authority schemes, 80% for private apartment blocks, and 60% for build-to-rent developments. But it does nothing for someone in a terraced house with on-street parking. And it does nothing for a village with no apartment complexes large enough to justify a management company application. For Coolock Village, the solution is public on-street charging. ## What we are documenting The EV Charging Research page on this site outlines what an installation could look like if demand, grid capacity, footpath safety, and operator interest line up. Candidate locations include on-street AC chargers on Main Street and surrounding roads, plus a possible rapid hub at a suitable location like the library car park for short-stay top-ups. This is not wishful thinking. It is the kind of infrastructure already appearing in Blackrock, Dun Laoghaire, and parts of South Dublin. ### What You Can Do Right Now - Email ESB eCars. Contact ecars@esb.ie and request on-street chargers for Coolock Village. They prioritise areas with the most requests. - Contact your local councillors. Ask them to push for EV infrastructure in the North Central Area. Names and emails are on the DCC councillor page . - Use the template. The EV Charging Research page includes a pre-drafted email you can send. It takes two minutes. - Share this article. The more people who know about the gap, the harder it is to ignore. ## The uncomfortable truth Ireland’s Climate Action Plan set a target of 195,000 EVs on the road by early 2025. That target was narrowly met, over 196,000 EVs were registered by October 2025. But the charging infrastructure has not kept pace with registrations, and the distribution of that infrastructure favours wealthier areas with driveways and shopping centre car parks. Coolock Village is not a wealthy area. It is not a greenfield suburb with planning conditions mandating charger installation. It is an established village with narrow streets and on-street parking. If the national EV strategy does not account for places like this, it is not a national strategy. It is a strategy for people who already have garages. We will keep documenting the gap. If you want to help, start with the research brief . C Coolock Village Regeneration Project Community Initiative ## In this update - The national picture - The grid problem - Reliability complaints - What this means for Coolock Village specifically - What we are documenting - The uncomfortable truth - - ## Share this update WhatsApp Facebook Mastodon post Email - Copy link ## Filed under - #ev-charging - #infrastructure - #esb - #coolock-village - #transport Keep reading ## More from Coolock Village News ### Traffic and Parking on Main Street: The Problem Nobody Designed 18 Feb 2025 / 5 min News ### Coolock Village's Water Pressure Problem Is a Fire Safety Risk 25 Feb 2026 / 4 min News ### Keeping the Village Directory Accurate 26 Feb 2026 / 3 min Older Traffic and Parking on Main Street: The Problem Nobody Designed Newer What Strong Villages Do — and What We Can Do Here All updates ---