Nordic EV Summit takeaway: Profitable EV charging starts with geospatial intelligence

The Nordic EV Summit continues to be one of the most important meeting points for the electric mobility ecosystem. This year, the halls were packed with charging hardware manufacturers, software platforms, utilities, and infrastructure developers. What stood out just as much as who was there, was who wasn’t.

The major charge point operators were largely absent.

At a time when EV infrastructure rollout is accelerating, this absence says something about where the industry is - and where it might be stuck. The conversations were rich in technology, yet a thorough exploration of the future-oriented strategies for ensuring sustainable business practices, particularly in terms of site-level feasibility and optimizations, were scarce.

You can't optimize what you can't see

What is evident - is the growing need not just for innovation - but for coordination, intelligence, speed and optimization. If the last few years were about building the infrastructure and getting it in place, the next wave is about solving for complexity at the spatial and systemic level. This was also our messaging in the keynote Luis held on main stage during the event.

Grid connection delays are becoming one of the biggest barrier to growth and developers are still forced to spend months exploring sites that later prove unviable due to grid constraints, zoning rules, or unclear permitting timelines. The result? Lost momentum and rising costs.

What’s needed now is a shift from reactive planning to proactive pre-qualification - using geospatial intelligence to filter viable sites before investment decisions are made. That means integrating grid data, regulatory overlays, and infrastructure needs into one shared view. The more complex the grid becomes, the more critical this visibility is. Not just for energy companies and utilities, but for cities, developers, and operators. EV infrastructure doesn’t exist in isolation. It sits at the intersection of energy, mobility, locations and customers - and we need planning tools that can hold all of that complexity in one place.

👉 Want to see how SurplusMap is using geospatial intelligence to support smarter desicions and drive profitability? Get in touch!