As reported in the media, including in The Driven, business groups attempting to install DC charging stations throughout Australia are getting further behind schedule – and much of this is due to grid connection restraints.
It’s not a shortage of power over the whole grid averaged out over 24 hours, 7 days a week, but a shortage of peak power available at individual sites when 1 or more DC fast chargers are required.
Two paths can be taken here. One is the path of excuses, finger pointing, passing the buck and negativity, the other is to find some low cost short term solutions to shorten the gap between DC chargers available and DC chargers required.
The best way to do this is make far better use of the charging locations already commissioned.
Address reliability of DC chargers
Those responsible for the DC chargers already installed must do everything possible to improve the reliability and repair times.
At the moment reliability is poor and repair times are atrocious, and this is not attributed to one charging equipment maker or one charging business. It’s a widespread problem.
What’s the point in going through all the hard work and negotiations of getting a grid connection approved, spending potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars then having an expensive DC charger blocking up that valuable site because it’s broken for weeks or even months.
If these grid connected sites are so hard to find having a DC charger not paying its way is a poor business decision
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Education
A DC charger may be a good business decision when it’s delivering as close to its peak power as possible 24/7.
An EV that is charging at close to peak power could be a profitable customer, an EV charging beyond 80% goes from a potentially profitable customer to a tenant paying lower rent, and when they go past 90% – when the charging speed slows rapidly – the same customer is paying 1/3 rent.
No doubt there’s a few EVs that need to charge past 80% on long trips, but they are few and far between.
Is the solution to increase charging costs for those going above 80 or 90%? No, because that punishes the less than 1% of EV owners that genuinely need a high state of charge. A better solution would be incentives for good behaviour, maybe “80%” club members get a discount after 5 charge sessions that don’t go above 80%?
It can be done, and when it comes to saving money no one spots a discount faster than an EV owner.
Encourage AC charging for locals
Each AC charger can only deliver approximately 4 times less power than a 50kW DC charger, or 8 to 12 times less power than a 150kW DC charger, but it has multiple advantages over DC charging.
AC installations are not held up by grid connection restraints as often as DC because multiple small bites spread across an area are better than one big one at a single site, installation costs are vastly lower, and currently AC charging equipment is proving to be far more reliable than DC fast chargers.
Many EV drivers that are currently using DC charging for local driving would be happy to make use of AC charging that has a far lower price per kWh. I can’t see it being difficult for a charging app to promote a lower cost AC charger nearby to a historically busy DC charger.
Personally, I believe public charging infrastructure on average across Australia is more than a year behind what is necessary for the number of EVs on the roads, I can only see that gap widening unless those in a position to improve the charging infrastructure look past the excuses and see the blatantly obvious.