Intellihub begins roll out of 50 power pole chargers for EV owners with no garage

The first of 50 power pole mounted electric vehicle (EV) chargers has been rolled out across Sydney and the Hunter regions of NSW by utility services company Intellihub in a $2 million program.

The 22kW pole mounted EV chargers – supported by $871,000 in funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) –  will be installed on wooden power poles and remove the need for expensive roadworks and infrastructure upgrades.

The 50 pole mounted EV chargers will be installed across 8 New South Wales local government areas, with the first chargers already live in Lane Cove and St Leonards in Syndey’s North and at Maroubra, Coogee, and North Bondi in Sydney’s east.

Intellihub will now move on to installing the remaining 41 EV chargers in local streets across Sydney’s St George, Eastern Suburbs, and Northern Beaches regions, as well as the Lake Macquarie and Singleton regions in the Hunter Valley.

All 50 chargers are expected to be online by the end of the year.

Federal Minister for climate change and energy, Chris Bowen, was on hand to officially power up the first of the EV chargers in the inner Sydney suburb of Wolli Creek.

“Around 9% of all new car sales in Australia are now electric vehicles, and in some areas of Sydney the rates of EV adoption are double the national average,” said Wes Ballantine, CEO of Intellihub.

“By 2030, most experts expect that there will be more than one million electric vehicles on Australian roads.

“Power poles line most streets and that presents an enormous opportunity for local communities that will need a range of public charging solutions.

“They’re an accessible, safe, and practical option for EV charging.”

The 22kW EV chargers are supplied by French multinational Schneider Electric and are managed using the popular Exploren platform, which was developed by Australian EV software and hardware provider EVSE, and which already supports around 500 public chargers across Sydney.

Origin Energy will provide 100% accredited GreenPower for the project. Intellihub says that a two-hour charging session with one of these EV chargers is enough to provide around 200 kilometres of driving range.