Charging Ahead – Powering up Australian Vehicles

Charging Ahead

Electric vehicle take up in Australia is improving but now the real dilemma is about keeping them on the road.

State governments have begun to push to construct and support the expanding network of electric vehicles; WA and NSW in a more concerted fashion than Victoria and Queensland. • Western Australia is building one of the world’s longest continuously connected electric highways, installing 98 Electric

Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) stations over 6,600kms and costing a total of $43.5 million. • Queensland has $10 million co-funding commitments for contribution towards building fast charging infrastructure for local government and industry throughout the state. • Victoria is investing $19 million for the rollout of EVSEs for the Victorian

Government’s commercial EV fleets and destination charging throughout regional

Victoria. • NSW has an investment of $149 million in developing charging network across the state, including co-funding private industry development of fast-charging stations. Clayton Utz recently reviewed the challenges for Australia’s electric vehicle charging infrastructure in a short report which also showed how some overseas countries are dealing with the challenges. As an example, in the US the government has: • committed to the goal to build the first US national network of 500,000 EVSEs along the US’s highways by 2030; and • secured $7.5 billion USD for EV charging infrastructure, of which: • US$5 billion is to fund the National

Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program for individual states to build out their charging networks; and • US$2.5 billion is to be offered in competitive grants to support community and corridor charging in underserved and overburdened communities.

The US is probably closer to Australia in terms of the types of problems encountered due to distance, Europe is not. In the Clayton Utz article the author, Peter Holcombe Henley, said that despite commitments to the roll-out of fast and standard EVSEs across Australia and overseas, there is a growing chorus of discontent from EV owners, who complain of EVSE outages, unavailability and impact on travel plans, which is now receiving media attention. Flooding, equipment damage or failure, missing parts and delayed maintenance responses are all cited as reasons for outages by EV users. While some of these problems are inevitable, outages for the same issue can last for weeks, if not months, permeating the whole charging network, causing unreliability for consumers. As consumers, councils, governments and other corporations make the full-time switch from traditional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) to EVs, the reliability and maintenance of EVSE will become an increasingly critical factor in the pace of EV uptake.

Legal complexities of powering up

As Clayton Utz is essentially a law firm its focus was more on the legal implications of this new infrastructure. A key lesson from this emerging issue is to provide greater focus in the procurement process to the operational phase of an EVSE install. However, a proper maintenance and service structure is not always a simple task to achieve. To do so, parties must navigate a variety of commercial and legal complexities including: • identifying who takes the long-term risk of

EVSE availability: is it a fuel company, an energy provider, a commercial retailer or government agency? • understanding an asset’s life-cycle management from station design and installation to operations and refresh/ decommissioning. • ensuring both software and hardware support, particularly for EVSE software licensed and supported by a third-party provider. • aligning various contractual and financial incentives to achieve a commercial and viable support and maintenance outcome throughout the equipment’s lifecycle; and • providing an effective, reliable and appealing end-user outcome and experience. A variety of installation and service models are available in the market currently, which range from:

• a basic EVSE installation service, where customers buy the EVSE outright and may receive ongoing product warranties and basic software support; to • a full infrastructure-as-a-service subscription model, where the customer has no ownership and simply pays a periodic fee for a guaranteed level of EVSE availability and performance. Factors to consider in entering such contracts include: • Is the EVSE providing a standalone service, or is it intended to support other commercial or operational benefits? • Is there opportunity to levy usage fees on some or all users of the EVSE, and will those fees apply to unknown third parties/the general public, or to employees / contractors for whom other charging frameworks may be available? • What is the physical layout of the facility, and are existing facility management arrangements sufficient to accommodate longer-term support and maintenance arrangements for EVSE? • How scalable is the EVSE offering, and how many EVSE installations can be made before the existing electrical infrastructure of a site needs to be enhanced? Mr Henley said that substantial EVSE installations may require electricity network connections to be upgraded. For example, as part of the Victorian Government’s Zero Emissions Bus Trial, electrical substation upgrades have been required to provide necessary power requirements to bus depots. As hub or depot EVSE installations increase in other transport sectors (such as hire cars and logistics/ corporate fleets), significant further upgrades are likely to be required. Since 2021, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has been funding projects to expand the public charging network to address EV charging blackspots, increase public take-up and better understand how the emerging market will function. Significantly, the projects are also designed to ensure renewable energy is used to power all charging sites and aims to provide insights into the impact of public fast charging on the electricity grid. The outcomes of ARENA’s analysis will be critical in informing how energy and transport sectors can integrate renewable energy generation into an enhanced grid infrastructure to support decarbonisation goals, and in identifying the legal and commercial risks and opportunities this presents.

Range Phobia

Much of the focus in the past was on range phobia but those days are fading into the background as more charging stations open throughout Australia. Our wide brown land will soon be dotted with accessible charging stations. Australia has more than 3,000 EV public charging points, included in this is an increase of 85 percent in EV fast chargers. As of January 2022, there were 293 fast charging locations (50kW or above) around Australia and 1580 regular charging stations (below 50kW), this is up 29 percent. According to the Electric Vehicle Council, 700 new fast charging locations will be added across Australia over the next five years. Each location will have multiple charging points to accommodate many vehicles. There are many EV charging infrastructure providers operating within Australia, including Chargefox, JET Charge, Tritium, EVSE, EVIE, Schneider Electric, Keba, EVERTY, NHP Electrical Engineering and eGo Dock. JET Charge will supply the 42 Kempower C-Stations along the new EV highway in Western Australia. The project is one of the world’s longest single EV infrastructure projects. Once the EV highway is completed, drivers will be able to access 98 EV chargers spread across 49 locations, no more than 200km apart. These 42 Kempower C-Stations combine a charging power unit and charging satellite into a single unit. Depending on the site they will deliver 150kW of power dynamically to two outputs and can be upgraded up to 200kW with four out-puts. JET Charge selected the Kempower C-Station for the EV highway project due to its robust design, dynamic power management, high voltage and practical driver interface experience. The modular design architecture easily allows for future expansion. Following a major funding injection from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), Evie plans on installing 400 new EV chargers across Australia and the company is also partnering with AMP Capital to deliver fast charging sites in shopping centres in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia and New Zealand. In stage one of Evie’s rollout the network will expand across 16 shopping centres with two charging bays per site, with the ability to scale up in the future as more EVs hit the road. Evie has already partnered with fast food giant Hungry Jacks and has begun to install fast chargers at its restaurants and it is partnering with Ampol to install ultra-fast charging stations. The first of these is at Ampol’s Avenel site in Victoria which is branded Caltex, and it will have two available bays for EV owners, with charging to be delivered in around 15 minutes using Evie Networks’ ultra-fast 350-kilowatt Australian-made, Tritium technology. Avenel is the first of six ultra-fast charging sites and will form part of the ultra-fast charging network connecting the east coast of Australia from Cairns to Adelaide. Called AmpCharge it will see these chargers also installed at service stations in Alexandria and Northmead in NSW, Altona North in

Victoria, Belmont in WA and Carseldine in Queensland. Alan Stuart-Grant, Ampol’s Executive General Manager, Strategy and Corporate Development, said the pilot would provide an opportunity to test how EV charging can be integrated into a traditional service station forecourt. “Ampol’s national network of retail sites, along Australia’s major highways and close to existing high-traffic road infrastructure in metropolitan areas, makes us uniquely placed to play a key role in the delivery of EV charging,” he said. An agreement was reached between Ampol and ARENA to roll out charging infrastructure to its existing retail network. This is believed to be a first for a local petrol retailer. In Victoria the state government is investing in new electric vehicle initiatives with $5 million going towards a fast-charging network and $3 million in charging grants. The Destination Charging Across Victoria Program will mean that drivers in any Victorian town will be one hour away from a fast-charger, with 141 electric vehicle fastcharging stations being installed across the state. Destinations include shopping complexes, public parks, community centres, libraries, and tourist hot spots such as the Great Ocean Road, Melbourne Zoo, the MCG, and Queen Victoria Market. The initiatives − part of Victoria’s $100 million Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) Roadmap − will significantly ramp up the state’s charging infrastructure and make it easier for Victorians to purchase an electric vehicle. ARENA has announced $871,000 in funding to Intellihub for an Australian first deployment of 50 electric vehicle (EV) chargers installed on street side power poles for EV owners without off-street parking across New South Wales. Intellihub will install EV chargers on power poles across nine local government areas in New South Wales to cater for EV owners who live in apartments, townhouses or units that do not have access to EV charging on-site. Intellihub’s $2.04 million project is supported by Schneider Electric who will provide the EV charging infrastructure, and EVSE who will be managing the charging service. Schneider Electric’s EV chargers will allow for convenient top ups, as well as overnight charging. Origin Energy will supply 100 percent GreenPower for the project, meaning all of the energy required to charge the vehicles will be matched with the equivalent amount of certified renewable energy added to the grid. The nine local councils taking part in the project include Waverley, Woollahra, Randwick, Lake Macquarie, Ryde, Singleton, Parramatta, Northern Beaches and Inner West local councils. The trial aims to highlight that there are currently no regulatory barriers to using existing infrastructure that already has power running to it, such as street power poles, and will also help to understand the impact of EV chargers on the electricity network. If the trial is successful, then Intellihub aims to pursue a wider rollout of chargers to more local councils on a commercial basis. ARENA CEO Darren Miller said power pole charging provided the perfect solution to increasing public EV chargers. “Not all electric vehicle owners have the ability to charge their vehicle at home, which is why we’re excited to partner with Intellihub on this trial that utilises street side power poles, providing a great opportunity to pair with EV charging. “We look forward to seeing the results of the trial from Intellihub and hope to see it rolled out right across Australia.” Mr Miller said. Intellihub CEO Wes Ballantine said: “It’s expected that as many as 10 percent of new car sales in Australia will be electric vehicles by 2025. That equates to an extra 120,000 new EVs on our local streets each year. It’s likely that many of these car owners may be unable to charge their EVs from home. “Power poles line most of our public streets and that presents an opportunity for the EV charging market. They’re an accessible, safe, and practical option for EV charging.”

Finding a charge point

A free app for iOS, Android and the internet called PlugShare allows users to find charging stations in Australia and worldwide. There are around 300,000 monthly active users who plan their trips finding charging stations on the way and pay directly for their charging use through the platform. It is expected that soon Google Maps in Australia will roll out its EV charging station finder that has been released in the UK and the US making it even easier to get plugged in.