Evie Networks has one of the largest electric vehicle public charging networks so we spoke to Bernhard Conoplia, Head of Charging at Evie Networks, to find out more about the growth and utilisation of public charging stations.
How many charging sites do you have in the network and how many are you planning to build?
“So we’re at 111 live sites now and plans to grow that to roughly 150 by the middle of the year. And 250 by the end of the year is the goal. So we need to keep pace. There’s only 80,000 battery electric vehicles on the road today, although as a percentage of new car sales, it’s very encouraging that it’s consistently above 5% now. And a lot of people say that’s a tipping point. So that’s really exciting. We definitely need to keep pace with the growth of the market. And we’re seeing people use public fast charging, actually a lot more than what we expected or planned for.
“We need to keep on providing drivers with a good level of confidence. And, you know, they want the charges to be in the right places they want the charge has to be operating in and available. That’s really the focus of our activity.”
I’ve noticed most of your sites have two chargers, what’s the optimum number of plugs per site?
“The utilisation on the network is growing and that’s a good thing is from our perspective as a charging network operator. But we do need to keep pace with the build of the network. Constantly build new sites and grow our existing sites.
“We’ve upgraded our site at Sutton forest to four charges, we started at two, when we quite quickly upgraded that to four based on utilisation that was built to accommodate that expansion. So that’s a site that warranted a, an early expansion, and we got on did that. And other sites will, we’ll look at doing that, along with, you know, obviously building more charging stations in, in more areas.
Do you offer free charging at your charge stations?
“We don’t offer free charging, these chargers require a lot of investments to build, it does take typically 18 months to build a public fast charging station. And it can be anywhere from $150,000 up to a million dollars or so to to build these.
So they’re not free. We do charge a reasonable cost. We want to make sure that public fast charging is affordable for everyone. There are many drivers, many segments of drivers, that will depend on affordable public fast charging. So we need to make sure that what we’re building is accommodating those driver segments, but also that, the cost of electricity that we pay allows us to pass on an affordable rate. We’re working very closely with regulators and distribution networks to make sure that there are, for example, appropriate tarrifs on charging stations.
So I’ve used your charging station at Marrickville Metro shopping centre and it was $0.40 kWh the first time and $0.45 kWh recently. Is that the standard price around the country?
“So we have 45 cents on our metropolitan chargers, those ones similar to Marrickville Metro. Those are 50 kilowatt but could be up to 75 kilowatt. And then our highway charges they charge today up to 350 kilowatts, and they are at 60 cents.
That sounds like a competitive rate compared to some of the other public charging networks.
“It’s definitely competitive. We want public fast charging to be affordable for everyone. And there are many driver segments that will depend on public fast charging, and people who don’t have driveways, people who live in apartments, professional drivers, small businesses, they want to keep their cars on the road needs to be affordable, and we’re doing our best to make sure it is affordable. I think that’s what’s going to underpin the uptake of of EVs in Australia. Having the right infrastructure and making sure that drivers have confidence to use it and that it’s enabling everyone to make the transition.
Do you have any fleet customer using the public charging network?
“We do have some large customers. We’re helping fleets, more and more. It’s a growing part of part of our business, we’re helping them more and more to deploy the infrastructure at their depots. To deploy charging infrastructure at the homes of their employees, give them access to public fast charging, so the vehicles always on the go have the ability to charge on the go. There’s 24/7 data and insights that we can provide those customers, we can operate and maintain that infrastructure to our same high standards. Provide solutions like load monitoring. Make sure it’s all built to the highest safety standards. So we really offering a service, which is equivalent to the service we provide ourselves on the public fast charging network.
Do do you manage the billing for fleet customers?
“We have an RFID card which we can provide which is linked to a vehicle or a driver. And all of that data is available and shared with the customer so all of those costs can be tracked appropriately. It can be billed in any number of ways. It can be a post pay billing arrangement, it can be part of a larger account setup. There’s a lot of flexibility that can be provided.
Are you using renewable sources for the electricity?
“Our network is 100% Green Power. 100% renewable energy. That’s an important point and an important differentiator actually, not all networks are 100% renewable energy. So we can assist customers in also ensuring that their kilometres are powered 100% by renewable energy.
What about the commentators that say most people will charge at home and won’t need to use public charging networks?
“So yes, 80% of charging, possibly more will be done at home, because that’ll be the most convenient charging for a lot of drivers. But as I said before, there are many driver segments with many different needs and many different behaviours. And, you know, there’ll be many drivers that don’t have access to home charging.
“I should clarify that 80% of charging will be done at home for those people who have access to home charging, Then there’s all the drivers who may not have access to home charging, as well as the additional charging that those people who do have home charging go and perform anyway.
“So if you’re a professional driver, a home charger is not actually going to give you enough kilometres overnight. So you need public charging. If you don’t have a driveway, you’ll need public charging. And there are many people who just find it convenient to go and top up their car while they’re doing the shopping. So I think that comment is overly simplistic. There are many different drivers segments with many different priorities.
