Charging towards an EV future: how powerful is your postcode? – EQ Mag Pro

Electric car ownership has become increasingly popular as Australians look for greener modes of transport, but the availability of charging stations will test the state’s ability to cope with the emerging technology.

There is no definitive source for the location of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations but data from PlugShare.com shows there were 192 postcodes in Greater Sydney that did not have a public charging point by the start of 2022.

Meanwhile, the easiest places to charge your EV are in the Sydney CBD where about 75 plugs are located, followed by Glebe with 21 plugs, Lane Cove with 19 plugs, while Blacktown and Eastern Creek had 18 each.

But the locations of these charging stations don’t always coincide with where the EVs are located.

Canterbury-Bankstown had the most passenger EVs in the state at 5105, followed by Blacktown with 3642. The highest rate of EV registrations was in Sydney City, Willoughby, Bayside, Strathfield.

Recent analysis revealed EV ownership is surging across NSW as prices fall, creating more demand for charging stations.

While EV owners can charge their cars at home, publicly accessible fast-charging stations enable EV owners to travel longer distances. These stations are provided via private companies, or are co-funded by the government.

Charging at home can be difficult for people who live in apartments. One electric vehicle owner in Darlinghurst last week told the Herald he had to dump his car because the strata would not let him charge in the garage.

There isabout 100 publicly co-funded fast-charging stations statewide and the first round of federal government co-funding will add about 120 more by 2024. The NSW government is also co-funding another 250 locations by 2027.

Private companies plan – “conservatively perhaps” – 1000 fast-charging locations in NSW by 2030, Electric Vehicle Council expert Ross De Rango told The Sun-Herald.

“The majority of EV charging is going to happen in people’s homes [but] if we assume that by 2030, 10 per cent of cars are electric [aligning with half of all new passenger vehicle sales being electric] there will be 440,000 EVs on NSW roads,” he said.

“We’ll likely have about one third as many high power charging locations as we do petrol stations then, and some will be co-located.”

Australia Institute director Richie Merzian said the uptick of EVs worldwide will test the availability of charging infrastructure as it can take 20 minutes or more to refuel an empty battery.

“In Australia we are lucky because a large number of people can charge at home but as these cars roll out in inner-city areas we have to have mandated charging facilities in buildings and adapt the building code to make that happen,” Mr Merzian said.

The Norwegian government started installing fast chargers every 50 kilometres on its main roads in 2015 by funding up to 100 per cent of the installation costs and, except for two main roads, that goal has now been achieved, he said.

As charging options for EVs grow, petrol station locations are shrinking from a national peak of 20-25,000 in the 1970s to about 6400, five years ago. In NSW, FuelCheck listed about 2140 petrol stations in March 2022.

Targets for publicly accessible chargers in the European Union are one public charger per 10 EVs, but recent International Energy Agency analysis found the lowest ratios of chargers were in places with high numbers of EVs and sparsely populated countries with many detached houses and private parking used for home charging.

Ratio of public chargers per electric vehicle in 2020

One publicly accessible charger per 10 EVs, is a ratio of 0.1.

Some operators are giving energy away for free, but typical prices at a public fast charging stations range from 40 to 50 cents per kW hour. Home charging costs roughly 20 to 30 cents per kW hour and off-peak or solar panel power costs about 10 cents, but these are much slower options.

EV charging stations can cost $150,000 to $1.2 million to build, Evie Networks CEO Chris Mills said, and as many people can’t easily charge at home, public, fast, reliable charging is needed, however outdated electricity tariffs are constraining the sector and creating higher costs.

“Although our demand is remotely controllable and largely off-peak, charging providers continue to be slugged with outdated tariffs that are designed for factories, not charging stations,” Mr Mills said. “Australia can and should adopt an approach similar to that taken in North America, Europe and Asia, where specific EV tariffs have been designed.”

NSW leads the country in funding EV infrastructure, but for charging station operators to have a viable business they need more cars to serve to make a profit.

A NSW government spokeswoman said it had committed more than $500 million to EVs, and “more than double the amount of every other state, territory and the Commonwealth combined in EV charger infrastructure”.

The NSW government is “working” to address tariff reforms and “continuing to investigate the best ways to update data collection”.

Rapidly growing numbers of plugs for EVs eases range anxiety for drivers, but there’s growing concern about the reliability of some charging stations including in the UK, USA and Canada.

Source: smh