March 24, 2025 • 38 mins
Ross De Rango, from the Electric Vehicle Council explains the challenges and solutions for installing EV chargers in apartment buildings while addressing common misconceptions about EV fire safety and implementation costs.
- Electric Vehicle Council works on policy advocacy, industry development, and facilitating connections between stakeholders
- About 10.5% of Australians (2.6 million people) live in approximately 1.2 million apartment dwellings
- Apartment EV charging faces unique challenges including common property issues and electrical capacity limitations
- Approval processes vary by state with different voting thresholds (50% in NSW, 75% in Queensland and Victoria)
- Solutions range from simple power points ($4,000 for eight parking bays) to comprehensive building-wide systems
- EVs are far less likely to catch fire than petrol/diesel vehicles, with Fire Rescue NSW responding to seven vehicle fires daily
- Apartment buildings that don't support EV charging will likely see reduced property values and rental yields
- Vehicle-to-grid technology will allow EVs to support the energy grid and help phase out fossil fuel power plants
- By 2030, electric vehicles will likely represent 10-15% of vehicles on Australian roads
Find out more at solarchoice.net.au and stay tuned for our next episode in two weeks.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
G'day everyone.
Welcome to the EV ChargingPodcast, where we take you
behind the scenes of theelectric vehicle charging
industry in Australia and aroundthe world.
I'm Geoff Sykes and I'm DanielCarson and we're your hosts from
Solar Choice, australia'slargest independent quote
comparison service coveringsolar batteries, ev chargers,
(00:37):
heat pumps and aircon.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Today we've got an interview with Ross Durango from
the Electric Vehicle Council.
Ross is a really importantfigure in the Australian EV
charging scene and, along withthe EV Council, has done some
great work informing governmentpolicy, working on research
projects that have helped shapethe industry into what it is
today.
We chose to talk to Ross aboutelectric vehicle charging in
(01:03):
apartments because that's anarea that we've worked with him
before.
He's got an incredible amountof knowledge and I'm sure this
will be a useful episode foranyone who's living in an
apartment and thinking aboutpurchasing an EV.
Welcome, Ross, thank you forjoining us.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Absolute pleasure.
Thanks for having me on theshow.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
To get us started.
It might be useful for ouraudience if you could maybe give
us a bit of background onyourself.
How did you find yourselfworking at the Electric Vehicle
Council?
What does that path look like?
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, thanks.
So my name's Ross.
I'm a robotics engineer bybackground.
People who are listening tothis podcast are probably
familiar with NHP.
I spent 13 years working forNHP in the electrical industry
doing automation stuff, safetystuff, hazardous area stuff.
Around about 2016, I got giventhe task of figuring out what
the next big thing is going tobe, so that we can get a piece
(01:59):
of it.
Took a bit of a look around andsaid the next big thing is
probably going to be EV for anorganisation that's largely into
power distribution.
Spent a few years at NHPleading the EV work there, and
then got the tap on the shoulderto come join the Electric
Vehicle Council and do a lot ofthe same sorts of things I was
doing at NHP, but for the wholeindustry rather than just one
employer.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Okay and give us a sense of the timeline, because
for a lot of people, evs onlycame into their communities five
years ago.
Perhaps for the averageconsumer two or three years ago,
how long have you been thinkingabout this stuff around?
The Australia VictorianGovernance EV trial was made in
2014.
That was really really longdays in the Australian context,
but in 2016, evs were actuallythere.
(02:41):
We're talking about a lot ofTesla, a lot of Simplex, getting
about a couple of them.
We had some share handles thatwere featured in 2014.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Nissan League was around, but the number of EVs on
the road was measured inhundreds, not hundreds of
thousands, which is what ouraudience might be worth.
Just touching a little bit onthe Electric Vehicle Council on
this podcast this moment inWashington, and, of course, the
(03:14):
founding members of the ABC.
Tell us a little bit about howyou see ABC's role in Australia
and this transition and what youfocus on in that.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah for sure.
So the UBC is an industrypeople.
We're comprised of membersacross the transport and energy
and related sectors.
So we've got members who arevehicle manufacturers, people
who are electrical equipmentmanufacturers, energy networks,
energy retailers, installers,car rental companies, all sorts
of organizations that look at afuture involving electrified
(03:47):
transport and believe that theyhave a role to play.
It's not just limited to theobvious ones.
So we've got members likeStryker, for example, who sell
defibrillation equipment.
Their interest in it is in afuture where automotive
workshops are doing work on 400and 800 volt batteries.
Those workers might benefitfrom the existence of a
defibrillator on the wall.
So there's a few that areinvolved where there's a reason
(04:09):
for them to be there, but it'snot necessarily immediately
obvious.
The sort of work we do.
Three main legs to the EVC'swork.
There's policy and advocacy,where we work hand in glove with
government, working onlegislation, working on policy,
making sure that at a federaland state level and even local
level, we're all pulling in theright direction.
There's industry developmentwork, which is a lot of what I
(04:30):
do.
That's technical standards,codes.
How do we do the nuts and boltsof getting the future to work?
That involves things likeupdates to the building code,
making sure that when we'reputting up new apartments
they're wired EV ready.
It includes things like four,triple seven, making sure that
the inverter standard is goingto support v2g.
It includes things like therewrite of the wiring rules,
(04:50):
as3000 that's coming up for worknext year.
And then there's the easy andfun part of my job, which is
introducing people to each other.
The nature of the industry isthat no individual player can do
it alone.
We need the auto manufacturersand the charge point operators
and the hardware manufacturers.
Everybody's going to have towork together in order to get an
outcome where consumers find iteasy to switch to an EV.
(05:13):
So facilitating that, runningnetworking events, running
working groups, doing simpleintroductions big part of what
we do over here.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
And I think it's probably fair to say that, for
most people listening, if theyare EV enthusiasts thinking
about purchasing their first EV,if they are installers or work
in the industry, they have beendirectly affected by the work
that the Electric VehicleCouncil has done.
They've probably seen yourinfographics, maybe without
realising who put it together.
They've engaged with policythat was helped, you know, being
(05:43):
shaped by the EVC.
So I think it's hard tounderstate the effect that the
EVC has had on the industry,even if people don't really know
, or haven't known prior to thisconversation, exactly what
you're out there doing in thespace.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Well.
Thank you, that's a wonderfulcompliment, much appreciated.
Yes, we strive to make adifference.
The mission is to acceleratethe uptake of EVs in Australia.
We have certainly seen anacceleration of the uptake of
EVs in Australia.
We would certainly, of course,not take all the credit.
We've done our bit.
The organisations that are ourmembers are the boots on the
ground doing the work bringingin the cars, installing the
(06:18):
stuff, making the stuff.
Our role is to help to ensurethat they're doing that in a
policy-friendly environment, toensure that the regulations and
rules are match fit and to helpthem meet each other when they
need to collaborate.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Great Ross.
So one of the reasons webrought you here is to tackle
one of the more difficultproblems in the EV transition,
which is getting electricvehicle charging infrastructure
into residential apartmentbuildings.
So, just to set the scene alittle bit, 10.5% of Aussies
(06:52):
live in apartment buildings.
That's 2.6 million of us andthere's approximately 1.2
million apartment dwellings inAustralia.
So a pretty staggering numberof electric vehicle charges that
we expect to go in are going toneed to go into this sector,
and it's proven to be one of themore difficult areas to enable
(07:14):
EV charging for a whole varietyof reasons.
So, to set the scene a littlebit, I think it's helpful just
to step through what a typicalpathway would look like for
apartment building to installthis infrastructure, and it
typically starts with an ownerbuying an EV or considering the
purchase of an EV.
They start rattling on the cageof the strata manager and the
(07:35):
strata committee saying how do Icharge my electric vehicle?
And that triggers a whole bunchof questions where there's no
easy answer in terms of what arethe options, what needs to be
done to enable this person tocharge their Tesla and you know
the rest of the owners to beable to charge the electric
vehicles in the future.
(07:56):
So usually a feasibility studyis conducted at that stage,
which is something thatSolarJoyce has completed across
most of the states in Australia,which is something that Solid
Joyce has completed across mostof the states in Australia, and
that then leads into the nextsteps, which often look like the
committee picking one optionthat they think is most suited
(08:17):
to their owners and goingthrough the process to get that
approved.
And the approval process can beone of the more challenging
steps, as for many projects inStrata.
So people probably aren't toounfamiliar that it's well known
as a difficult area to getprojects done because it needs
to go to an all-owner vote.
The voting thresholds in NewSouth Wales, for example, is a
(08:41):
50% vote for these projects, butit's a 75% vote in Queensland
and Victoria and the otherstates in Australia sort of sit
somewhere in between.
And in the process of gettingthose votes you start to get the
objectors.
Sometimes there's people inthese buildings with their own
agendas, buildings with theirown agendas.
(09:06):
We've, you know, seen this somany times play out where one
owner will, will call out thoseconcerns around fire insurance,
different things to try andderail the project.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Sometimes they're legitimate concerns, sometimes
they've got their own agenda andthey don't want to go down the
path of electric vehicles andsometimes their concerns are
based on misinformation thatthey've picked up somewhere
along the way, when they've beentrying to, in good faith,
educate themselves, which is areal problem in the industry as
well.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
And so if someone's lucky enough to get through all
of those steps, and sometimestheir concerns are based on
misinformation that they'vepicked up somewhere along the
way when they've been trying to,in good faith, educate
themselves.
Their concerns are based ondisinformation.
Finally, they need to find anelectrical contractor that's got
experience and can install thisjob well and with the reality
of all of those steps being sodifficult.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
There's very few electrical contractors with the
right sort of experience toquote these jobs accurately, to
deliver them without disruption.
So it's a very complex area buta very crucial one that we're
going to need to get right inAustralia to enable this EV
transition.
So I mean, is that an accurateoverview from your perspective,
(10:15):
ross?
I mean these projects can takemany shapes, but, yeah, anything
you would add to that.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Yeah, yeah, well, look, I'll start at the top.
Yes, it is a tricky area Ifyou're thinking about a person
who owns an EV and wants to beable to charge it at home.
If they are in the threequarters of the population that
live in a standalone house witha driveway or a garage, whether
they're owning or renting, theirpathway is pretty
straightforward, right.
They'll likely already have a10-hour power point in the
(11:03):
garage they can use or they caninstall an EV charger.
The apartment complex is achallenge because of the common
property angle.
You've got an environment whereyou have your parking space
perhaps not physically connectedto your dwelling, and it's just
not easy to run electricityfrom your dwelling metre supply
to your car parking space.
(11:23):
That's not always the case.
Not all strata is identical.
If we're talking about strata,that's five or six units like
flats that are sitting on aproperty that used to be a house
and your carport is right nextto your unit.
In that setting, ev charging isnot much different to a
standalone home.
So some of those million plusdwellings will be
straightforward to execute, butothers are going to look more
(11:46):
like.
My apartment is on the 15thfloor, my allocated parking
space is on the third basementfloor and there is no way to run
an extension lead from floor 15to floor minus three.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, I think that sort of leads into another
problem, which is a lot ofowners don't sort of understand
this common property challengeand whether there's power supply
constraints to the building.
And we've commonly come acrossbuildings where they have
decided to let the first one ortwo owners put in a cable and
(12:18):
connect a wall box charger intheir own parking bay.
But the potential problem inthe future that not everyone is
going to be able to do thatwithout subsequently, in five or
10 years, overloading the powersupply to the building.
So it sort of delivers a firstmover advantage.
These people who can get thesecharges in before triggering any
power supplies will have theirinfrastructure.
(12:38):
And then the later adopterscome along and say, well,
they've got one, I would likeone, and and maybe the power
supply is not there yet.
So there are solutions to thatwith load management, but it
requires an understanding and aplan executed by the building at
the outset, without sort ofgoing down these piecemeal
(12:59):
problems.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah.
So I think that there's animportant piece there where the
average EV driver is neither anelectrician nor an engineer.
So we should not be assumingthat the driver, or indeed the
people on the owners' committee,who are average citizens like
the rest of us, are notnecessarily going to have the
full technical understanding.
They're going to needassistance in that domain from
consultants, from expertcontractors, from folks like
(13:23):
yourselves, to help work throughthat challenge.
The piece about first moveradvantage.
If you think about an oldapartment building, so one built
some time back when airconditioning was not a thing and
when the supply of heatingenergy for heating the building
and also for heating the waterwas gas, the electrical supply
(13:44):
to that building is likely to bepretty slim.
So if the residents of thatbuilding all want to install
induction cooktops or all wantto install air conditioners,
that's going to promote the samekinds of challenges as the
residents of that building orwanting to buy EVs.
It is almost always going to bethe case that there is some
spare capacity in the buildingin the middle of the night
(14:05):
without an electrical upgrade.
How much spare capacity thereis is going to vary.
Building by building A newbuilding built with the
assumption that every home has asplit system, there's going to
be plenty of capacity there forcharging EVs off-peak.
It's just about scheduling.
An old building may not be thecase.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned
the design Didn't take this intoconsideration.
Through our feasibility studies, we've probably put data
loggers on close to 100residential apartment buildings
now and can't say that there'sany real pattern or consistency
around the power supplyavailable to the number of
(14:43):
apartments.
It seems to be like in certainstates there's no pattern.
It's purely case by case to seewhat sort of capacity is left.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, and a good example, which actually
contradicts what you just said,ross, which is a building that
we're currently working withwhich is a three or
four-year-old site pretty luxuryapartments in a Sydney area
where you know they would bedesigning that building.
They should have been designingthat building with these types
of problems in mind and they'vegot slim to no spare electrical
capacity and even though it'sonly a three year old building,
(15:13):
they have no power goinganywhere near the basement car
park.
So there's also an element ofluck of the draw with apartment
buildings as well.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
So to give some context on that, I live in a
reasonably large standalonehouse.
I've got 63 amps three-phase tomy house.
The supply to these apartmentswas 100 amps three-phase split
across 20 homes and it's enoughright up until you're installing
any significant electrical kitand then it's not enough anymore
.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, once you start lifting the doors to these
switchboards in residentialapartment buildings, you find
some very strange setups.
Yeah, it just seems likethere's no rhyme or reason to it
.
But, ross, there is a wholerange of solutions for
retrofitting EVSE into apartmentbuildings, I think you know.
(16:00):
Perhaps one of themisconceptions is EV charging is
a wall box, it requires a lotof cabling, it's going to be
potentially a multiple hundredthousand dollar project and
there is actually a range ofdifferent ways in which owners
can charge their cars anddoesn't always lead to such a
(16:22):
huge price tag.
So what are the different waysthat could look?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yeah, absolutely so I'd say there is some good
independent advice from NewSouth Wales government in
particular on this one.
New South Wales government arerunning a grants program at the
moment for EV ready buildings.
But before they kicked off thegrants program they did a pile
of work with us and with OwnersCorporation to produce some
really useful guidance as to thevariety of ways this challenge
(16:46):
can be tackled.
Pathways forward for anapartment building varies widely
depending on the building.
We were talking about simplestrata before.
So flats of small number whereyou've got a carport In that
setting a power point or a sevenkilowatt wall box on the side
of the house in the carport areacan work.
In a bigger building you mightstart with a shared charger in a
(17:09):
visitor's car parking area asan interim step to working out
what to do next, because there'sa means to make some movement
forward.
That isn't going to sustainforever because if you've got
100 cars parking in thatbuilding the long term doesn't
look like all those peoplesharing one facility, but it can
get you started on the journey.
And the other point you madearound first mover advantage
(17:29):
there will be buildings wherethere is sufficient capacity in
terms of the infrastructure andthe network connection to let
some percentage of the peoplemove without it costing a
fortune.
So, depending on how the owner'scorporation wants to tackle it,
one reasonable strategy is tosay we're going to design a
solution here as a modularapproach, as an interim step
(17:52):
that'll solve for the first 15or 20% of people, right, and
we're going to do thatreasonably cheaply.
And here's how and here's theby bylaws.
And then once we get to 20% ofthe people having EVs, we know
that that solution is going tobe tapped out.
It's not going to work pastthat point, but we'll deal with
that in five or ten years whenwe get to that point.
And once you get to that point,succeeding in that 50% or 75%
(18:15):
vote in the owners corporationbecomes a bit easier, because at
that point you've got 20% ofthe residents of the building
owning EVs and maybe 50%thinking, yeah, an EV is going
to be my next car.
We do actually need to fix this.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah, and just to provide some colour at the very
sort of simple and cheap end ofthe spectrum to put a powerpoint
into parking bays, depending onhow the building's set up, of
course.
We've seen quotes as low asfour thousand dollars to set up
a car park for eight parkingbays.
So obviously there's a lot ofhigh rises and much bigger
(18:50):
buildings but there's a hugeamount of, you know, 10
apartment walk-up departmentbuildings dotted around sydney
and melbourne and brisbane thataren't necessarily looking at a
hundred thousand dollars toenable EV charging.
It could be a pretty simpleproject putting a PowerPoint
into everyone's parking bay, andwe've seen, as the votes have
been conducted on some of theseprojects, that PowerPoint is
(19:12):
actually attractive for non-EVowners because then they can
vacuum their car or plug afridge into their parking bay or
do something else with thatPowerPoint as well.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Yeah, so I'll be clear.
This is not a silver bulletkind of a problem.
It is a buckshot kind of aproblem.
There are lots and lots of waysto peel this particular
vegetable, the PowerPoint in thecommon car parking area.
The only note I would say thereis if the PowerPoint's being
fed by common property power,then there's got to be a way to
(19:42):
make sure that the personcharging their car is paying
their way.
Otherwise you'll run very, veryquickly into perfectly
reasonable fairnessconsiderations.
There's lots and lots of waysto do that.
Plenty of products out there,plenty of methods to do it.
Not saying it's a problem, it'sjust something that needs to be
front of mind, becauseotherwise what you'll get is
(20:04):
those individuals who areperhaps unfriendly to EVs
generally will quite reasonablylatch onto it and say why am I,
as a resident, paying for thatperson to charge their car?
I wouldn't contribute to theirpetrol bill.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
I think that's triggered a lot of the
feasibility studies we'vecompleted has been the existing
early adopters of EVs plugginginto the car wash bay or a spare
common area power point that'savailable in the car park
already and triggering that sortof discomfort amongst the other
(20:33):
owners that are effectivelychipping in for for this person
to charge their EV.
I remember about six or sevenyears ago when I was driving an
EV around Sydney.
I lived in a couple ofapartment buildings that I
rented at the time.
One of them, I ended upthrowing an extension cord off
the third story balcony to do anemergency charge when I had
(20:55):
gotten too low.
There was definitely a fewtimes when I had gotten too low.
There was definitely a fewtimes when I drove the car into
the car wash bay at 8pm andsnuck it out again at 5am in the
morning before anyone hadnoticed.
But if there was any otheroption for me to pay and charge
my own bay, I would have happilydone it.
But these types of guerrillacharging that people are forced
into to enable them to have anEV.
(21:17):
So it's sort of fair to saythat one way or another every
apartment building in Australiawill have to solve this problem,
whether it's in the next twoyears, the next five years, the
next 15 years.
It's unrealistic to think thatapartment owners will all be
using public infrastructure tocharge their car right.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeah.
So look what I would observethere is that individual
buildings will make their ownchoices.
It may be the case that somebuildings, for whatever reason,
choose not to support EVcharging within the building.
It is ultimately a choice forthe owners in the building to
make.
The observation that we'd makethere is that if the building
(21:57):
doesn't support any EV chargingat all, then the people who do
switch to EVs to your point willneed to charge their car
somewhere else.
That'll mean off the property,it'll mean less convenient,
it'll probably mean slightlymore expensive, but the real
impact on the owners of thatbuilding will be property prices
.
Because if someone isconsidering an apartment they
want to buy and they're thinkingthey might own an EV, one of
(22:18):
the things they're really goingto want to be able to do is
charge their car in theirallocated parking space.
If someone's renting anapartment and they own an EV and
renting in apartments is very,very common, right.
So overall in this countryabout one third of people rent,
but in apartments the renterpopulation is much, much higher
If you're owning an EV andrenting the place you live, you
(22:40):
absolutely will want to be ableto charge that car in your
allocated parking space.
An apartment complex thatdoesn't enable it will see
reduced property value and theowners will see reduced rental
yield.
So that's kind of the that'sthe fundamental piece that's
going to drive it.
It's the desire amongst thepeople who own the property to
have that property retain valueand to be able to collect a
(23:02):
sensible amount of rent.
Vast majority of buildings willfollow the money and follow the
resident's wishes and supportit.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, and I think that's something that probably
every year for the next 10 yearsis gonna be felt more and more
by apartment owners.
We find ourselves talking toclients about what you've just
been saying there and saying,look, this is something that's
going to affect property values.
It's going to affect how muchyou can charge to a renter soon
and it's also going to affectthe resale value.
But I think for a lot ofproperty owners right now that
(23:29):
still feels a bit theoreticalbecause they're not feeling the
impact of that.
If they're not selling theirapartment or relisting it in the
next six months, they're notreally sure that that's going to
affect them.
But as we move from the earlyadopters to the early majority
phase with EV uptake, there'sgoing to be more and more people
moving into apartments, eitherbecause they purchased them or
(23:49):
moving as a renter, wherethey'll be moving with an EV
already in tow, and thatquestion will become very real
for apartment owners.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Yeah, absolutely, and really it's just a question of
how long does it take for EVs tobecome large enough in quantity
that they move that particularneedle?
It took a very long time to getto 1% of the on-road fleet
being electric.
It took a very, very smallamount of time comparatively to
reach 2% of the on-road fleet iselectric.
(24:19):
That's roughly where we're attoday, reaching 3% or 4%.
Maybe 12 months it'll take usto reach 3% or 4% of the
vehicles on road being electricby 2030, it'll be somewhere on
the order of 10% to 15%, andonce 10% to 15% of your
potential target market isshopping for a specific feature,
if you can't offer it, thatwill have a meaningful impact.
(24:41):
So yeah, to your point.
For a lot of apartment owners,that financial matter has not
yet been keenly felt, but it iscoming very, very fast and the
ones that are switched on knowit's coming and they're taking
steps accordingly so, ross,these projects say they build up
.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
You know the Strata Committee is often doing a lot
of research.
They're going through thefeasibility, they're getting the
options, maybe getting somequotes.
It all leads to a climacticpoint, which is the vote.
So they, you know, put a motionforward at an AGM or maybe they
conduct a special meeting totry and get this project
(25:20):
approved to enable EV chargingin their basement.
And that's when often in ourexperience you've seen some of
these objectors come out of thewoodworks.
They they receive someinformation about the project
for the first time.
They go hang on, this is 50grand.
I've just bought a, you know,maybe they've just bought a
(25:41):
brand new range rover petrol ormaybe they've got some other
reason to object against theproject.
And you see both rational and,in a lot of cases, very
irrational objections againstthe project.
And often one of the hot spotsfor that is is fire.
(26:02):
So people are concerned aboutthe fire risk of evs.
I mean that's broadly, as we,as we know, a misconception
around evs in general being afire risk.
But the introduction ofcharging an electric vehicle in
a a car park, um is, is broadlysomething that the average
(26:23):
punter doesn't really know ifthat is a risk or not.
But there's enough.
There's enough noise out thereto to generate a bit of a stir.
So what?
What do people need tounderstand about five risks of
charging an EV?
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah, sure.
So I say yes.
There is absolutely a lot offear, uncertainty and doubt
being spread by many partieswith respect to EVs.
This is not surprising.
The scale of the transition toEVs is huge.
As a country, we spend about$50 billion a year on new cars.
We also spend about $50 billiona year on petrol and diesel for
(27:01):
those cars.
Changing that $100 billion perannum spend is going to cause
lots and lots of impact to lotsand lots of stakeholders.
So it's not surprising thatthere's money behind the
campaign to say maybe we shouldslow this down.
In terms of the perceived risk,the data relating to EV fires is
really, really clear.
(27:22):
Evs are far less likely to burnthan petrol or diesel cars.
In the handful of instances inAustralia where the battery in
an EV has gone up and when I sayhandful, like seven instances
when the battery in an EV hasgone up on a fleet of 300,000
vehicles there has been massiveexternal influence.
(27:42):
The things that have causedthose fires have been high speed
car crash, arson, the vehiclebeing disassembled by someone
who doesn't know what they'redoing and then being left in the
rain.
That's the kind of thing thathas caused the fires.
And when the fires havehappened.
They've been put out by ourbrave firefighters using water
and foam.
The same way, generally theytackle car fires.
For context, fire Rescue NewSouth Wales rolls out to about
(28:05):
seven vehicle fires every day.
Vehicle fires are very, verycommon.
They're not news.
They just make the news whenthey're electric cars Seven
every day.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
that's probably gonna surprise a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah.
So two and a half thousandincidences a year, more or less,
is what fires in Wales roll outto in vehicle fires.
That's information in theirannual report.
Ev fires, by comparison, very,very rare, but it is new and it
is different, and new anddifferent can cause people to
worry.
This is why we go to the dataon these matters.
New South Wales Parliament didsome work relatively recently.
(28:40):
The Stay Safe Committee did apiece of work after two
unrelated incidents in New SouthWales, so there's some public
information there.
The other thing that we'd giveguidance on is for a building.
Really, it's the insurer thatneeds to be contacted.
If you're doing retrofit workof EV charging in a building,
that is fundamentally electricalwork and it's regulated as
(29:03):
electrical work.
So you get a contractor to doit.
They do all the safe things,they do all the paperwork and
that's what the regulatory sidelooks like.
If your insurer is comfortablewith putting EV charging in the
basement, then that reallyshould be enough for the owner's
corporation.
The guidance we'd give there is, if your insurer is reading the
fear, uncertainty and doubt andhas problems or has concerns,
(29:24):
that's a trigger to call yourbroker and find a different
insurer to talk to.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
And so just looping back to the fire for a second.
So if you put yourself in theshoes of a Strata committee
member who's putting togetherthis project to take to a motion
, what regulations will thesolution need to comply with?
Are there any regulationsspecific to electric vehicle
charging or electric vehicles incar parks?
Speaker 3 (29:49):
So electric vehicle charging is electrical work, so
you absolutely have to have alicensed electrician do the
installation work.
Ultimately, in terms ofregulatory compliance, if you
want to install EV charging in abuilding, you can call an
electrician and the electriciancan install the equipment.
This is the basic regulatoryreality today.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
And is there any need to engage with a fire engineer?
Speaker 3 (30:17):
So often is going to be asked, and again this is
because of all the fear anddoubt that is being spread.
But in terms of a retrofit ofelectrical equipment to a
building, generally speaking theanswer is no.
Generally, electrical work doesnot trigger the requirement for
a fire engineer or a buildinginspector to be involved.
This doesn't mean that buildingsurveyors aren't agitating to
(30:39):
change those rules in order tomove the goalposts on that so
that they should be involved,and there's some fairly obvious
self-interest at play there.
But the current state of playis that electrical work is
electrical work Very, verydifferent.
If you're talking about a newbuilding, if you're building a
new structure or you'reundertaking significant
structural work, that is thekind of thing that does trigger
building inspectors and consentprocesses with fire services.
(31:02):
So a new building, very, verydistinct from established in
terms of the regulatoryframework that bounds it.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
I think the challenge is that these projects are so
tough to get over the line.
You know that process we talkedabout earlier.
We're talking about a yearjourney in a lot of cases to get
from that initial EV owner allthe way through the steps and
the objections through to an AGMand get the right vote and
actually conduct the projectthrough to an AGM and get the
right vote and actually conductthe project.
(31:30):
We've seen obviously muchshorter than that, but you know
it's not uncommon for theseprojects to stretch out over
multiple years.
We've found it extremely toughin the strata sector to find
electrical contractors that areactually interested in getting
involved in an apartmentbuilding.
I guess like a challenging areato find specialists right like
(31:52):
we.
We.
I kind of see solar choice asone of the businesses that is
foolish enough to have created abusiness model around Strata
buildings and and providingservices to Strata buildings in
this way, because there are somany challenges there and
there's so much more low-hangingfruit with EV charges in the
commercial space and in yourstandalone houses.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Yeah, so look you point up a very, very sensible,
reasonable argument there.
The challenge for theelectrical contractor is that if
they are expending effort toprogress, the possibility of an
opportunity with no realcertainty that it's actually
going to turn into work beingdone and then being paid, that's
a problem for their business.
(32:36):
A project like this mightrequire a week's worth of work
from the electrical contractor,to quote up.
So if the owner's corporationis looking for three or four
different quotes in order topick from and is not actually
yet committed to, this is thething we're going to do.
Perfectly reasonable for thesensible electrical contractor
to say, yeah, that's a week'sworth of work I'm probably not
(32:56):
going to get paid for.
So how do we square that up?
The cure to that really lookslike the owner's corporation
being cognizant of thatchallenge, that operational
reality for the electricalcontractor, and perhaps being
willing to pay upfront forexpert consulting advice.
This is an area where, if theexpectation of the owners
(33:17):
corporation is that businesseswill invest significant effort
with limited certainty of apayday, that expectation is
going to meet the market realityof those folks choosing to
spend their time doing otherthings.
So the guidance there is reallyone of before asking businesses
to invest a pile of time inyour project.
Understand that they arebusinesses and that they are
(33:40):
looking for some certainty.
So it may be necessary tocommit some money up front
towards covering off the costsof feasibility and design.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, I think that's probably the path that we've
seen most common from electricalcontractors who actually do
have experience down here.
They know not to get burnt bythe tire kickers, by putting a
price tag on just gettingstarted on the building and sort
of why.
We've seen these types ofprojects being referred to as
(34:07):
the poisoned apple of EVcharging, in that they look very
attractive.
They could be a $100,000project.
You could be engaged with thishuge building.
To come back and do more EVcharges and work over the next
10 to 15 years Sounds great,right until you start getting
stuck in the weeds of trying toactually get some of these
projects over the line.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Yeah, look, this is the nature of navigating
projects in the domain, right?
It's not that EVs arecompletely unusual in this
respect.
Easy to imagine an apartmentcomplex might be giving
consideration to.
We're looking at that gasboiler and we're thinking about
changing it over to electric.
What's that going to look like?
And the same sort of processand thought is going to run to
(34:49):
it.
There's capital cost, there'sexpense.
There's expense, there'sdisruption.
The committee needs to bebrought on board.
This is a similar kind ofchallenge to parallel challenges
in that regard, yeah, very much.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
so I thought maybe just to wrap up, we might step
away from apartments just for amoment and get your views on
what's to come, because you dospend a lot of time thinking
about all sorts of EV chargingproblems, not just departments
that we focused on today.
What can people expect to seefrom the insights that you have,
being a real industry insider,in 5, 10, 15 years?
(35:21):
What is this industry going tolook like for us in Australia?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Sure.
Well, I guess my observation isit's going to be awesome, right
, the reason I'm in thisindustry it's going to be really
, really fun to work in andwe're going to do a lot of
meaningful work.
We've got about 300,000 EVs onthe road towards the start of
next year.
I think we'll touch thatthreshold.
We've just crossed over 100,000sold this year.
So the future is going toinvolve millions of EVs.
(35:46):
That's going to be the dominantform of personal road transport,
as opposed to it being petroland diesel cars.
That doesn't mean that EVs aregoing to be the only vehicles on
the road.
There'll be people drivingaround in Holden Commodores on
club plates for a good longwhile yet, in the same way that
we've seen people in Model TFords driving around on club
plates.
So it's not to the exclusion ofall else.
(36:07):
It's going to become thedominant form of car.
We're going to see EVs enterinto the truck and bus sector in
a big way.
The transition of diesel busesfor public transport to electric
is already well underway and isonly going to speed up.
We're seeing supermarkets runelectric trucks for local
(36:28):
delivery.
We'll see local governmentsrunning electric garbage trucks.
If it's on wheels and it's onthe road.
It's going to move to electricover the next 15, 20 years.
The other big thing that'scoming is vehicle to grid, which
I think you guys have talkedabout a little bit before.
The scale of the batteries inthe cars over time is going to
(36:49):
be such that they are thebiggest form of storage
connected to the energy system.
To wrap some numbers aroundthis, we've got about 15 million
cars in the country.
If we had each of themexporting at about five
kilowatts roughly the size of atypical single phase household
solar inverter that combinedexport is more than double the
(37:09):
peak demand in the entire energysystem.
So we can't actually have afuture where all the cars export
.
We don't have that much demandin the system, even on the
hottest of afternoons.
V2g, done well, is how we canbring forward the closure of
coal and gas-fired power plants,and that's the climate mission.
That's the reason we're doingthe transition to EVs.
So you've got one half, whichis let's stop burning petrol and
(37:29):
diesel the climate mission.
That's the reason we're doingthe transition to EVs.
So you've got one half, whichis let's stop burning petrol and
diesel, and the other half isfantastic.
We can run these things onsolar and wind.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
We no longer need to burn coal and gas there's a lot
to be excited about,particularly for those of us who
live and breathe renewables,but as time will go on, I think
everyone's gonna reallyunderstand the scope of the
opportunity and the impact it'sgoing to have on everyday life,
the environment, all the thingsthat we love about living in
Australia and inhabiting thisplanet.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Completely agree and thank you for having me on the
show.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
It's been a pleasure.
Thanks so much for your time,ross, and we'll keep looking out
for all the great work thatyou're doing at the EVC Cheers.
Have a great day, thanks, ross.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
So that's it, and thanks for listening to this
episode of the EV ChargingPodcast Brought to you as always
by Solar Choice, australia'sonly instant quote comparison
service for solar EV chargers,heat pumps, batteries and air
conditioning systems.
We also provide independentconsultation and tender
management for clean energyprojects in commercial and
(38:35):
strata buildings, with over 17years of experience.
Find out more atsolarchoicenetau and stay tuned
for the next episode in twoweeks.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
If you think this is the best podcast you've ever
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See you in two weeks.
G'day everyone.
Welcome to the EV ChargingPodcast, where we take you
behind the scenes of theelectric vehicle charging
industry in Australia and aroundthe world.
I'm Geoff Sykes and I'm DanielCarson and we're your hosts from
Solar Choice, australia'slargest independent quote
comparison service coveringsolar batteries, ev chargers,
(00:37):
heat pumps and aircon.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Today we've got an interview with Ross Durango from
the Electric Vehicle Council.
Ross is a really importantfigure in the Australian EV
charging scene and, along withthe EV Council, has done some
great work informing governmentpolicy, working on research
projects that have helped shapethe industry into what it is
today.
We chose to talk to Ross aboutelectric vehicle charging in
(01:03):
apartments because that's anarea that we've worked with him
before.
He's got an incredible amountof knowledge and I'm sure this
will be a useful episode foranyone who's living in an
apartment and thinking aboutpurchasing an EV.
Welcome, Ross, thank you forjoining us.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Absolute pleasure.
Thanks for having me on theshow.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
To get us started.
It might be useful for ouraudience if you could maybe give
us a bit of background onyourself.
How did you find yourselfworking at the Electric Vehicle
Council?
What does that path look like?
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, thanks.
So my name's Ross.
I'm a robotics engineer bybackground.
People who are listening tothis podcast are probably
familiar with NHP.
I spent 13 years working forNHP in the electrical industry
doing automation stuff, safetystuff, hazardous area stuff.
Around about 2016, I got giventhe task of figuring out what
the next big thing is going tobe, so that we can get a piece
(01:59):
of it.
Took a bit of a look around andsaid the next big thing is
probably going to be EV for anorganisation that's largely into
power distribution.
Spent a few years at NHPleading the EV work there, and
then got the tap on the shoulderto come join the Electric
Vehicle Council and do a lot ofthe same sorts of things I was
doing at NHP, but for the wholeindustry rather than just one
employer.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Okay and give us a sense of the timeline, because
for a lot of people, evs onlycame into their communities five
years ago.
Perhaps for the averageconsumer two or three years ago,
how long have you been thinkingabout this stuff around?
The Australia VictorianGovernance EV trial was made in
2014.
That was really really longdays in the Australian context,
but in 2016, evs were actuallythere.
(02:41):
We're talking about a lot ofTesla, a lot of Simplex, getting
about a couple of them.
We had some share handles thatwere featured in 2014.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Nissan League was around, but the number of EVs on
the road was measured inhundreds, not hundreds of
thousands, which is what ouraudience might be worth.
Just touching a little bit onthe Electric Vehicle Council on
this podcast this moment inWashington, and, of course, the
(03:14):
founding members of the ABC.
Tell us a little bit about howyou see ABC's role in Australia
and this transition and what youfocus on in that.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah for sure.
So the UBC is an industrypeople.
We're comprised of membersacross the transport and energy
and related sectors.
So we've got members who arevehicle manufacturers, people
who are electrical equipmentmanufacturers, energy networks,
energy retailers, installers,car rental companies, all sorts
of organizations that look at afuture involving electrified
(03:47):
transport and believe that theyhave a role to play.
It's not just limited to theobvious ones.
So we've got members likeStryker, for example, who sell
defibrillation equipment.
Their interest in it is in afuture where automotive
workshops are doing work on 400and 800 volt batteries.
Those workers might benefitfrom the existence of a
defibrillator on the wall.
So there's a few that areinvolved where there's a reason
(04:09):
for them to be there, but it'snot necessarily immediately
obvious.
The sort of work we do.
Three main legs to the EVC'swork.
There's policy and advocacy,where we work hand in glove with
government, working onlegislation, working on policy,
making sure that at a federaland state level and even local
level, we're all pulling in theright direction.
There's industry developmentwork, which is a lot of what I
(04:30):
do.
That's technical standards,codes.
How do we do the nuts and boltsof getting the future to work?
That involves things likeupdates to the building code,
making sure that when we'reputting up new apartments
they're wired EV ready.
It includes things like four,triple seven, making sure that
the inverter standard is goingto support v2g.
It includes things like therewrite of the wiring rules,
(04:50):
as3000 that's coming up for worknext year.
And then there's the easy andfun part of my job, which is
introducing people to each other.
The nature of the industry isthat no individual player can do
it alone.
We need the auto manufacturersand the charge point operators
and the hardware manufacturers.
Everybody's going to have towork together in order to get an
outcome where consumers find iteasy to switch to an EV.
(05:13):
So facilitating that, runningnetworking events, running
working groups, doing simpleintroductions big part of what
we do over here.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
And I think it's probably fair to say that, for
most people listening, if theyare EV enthusiasts thinking
about purchasing their first EV,if they are installers or work
in the industry, they have beendirectly affected by the work
that the Electric VehicleCouncil has done.
They've probably seen yourinfographics, maybe without
realising who put it together.
They've engaged with policythat was helped, you know, being
(05:43):
shaped by the EVC.
So I think it's hard tounderstate the effect that the
EVC has had on the industry,even if people don't really know
, or haven't known prior to thisconversation, exactly what
you're out there doing in thespace.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Well.
Thank you, that's a wonderfulcompliment, much appreciated.
Yes, we strive to make adifference.
The mission is to acceleratethe uptake of EVs in Australia.
We have certainly seen anacceleration of the uptake of
EVs in Australia.
We would certainly, of course,not take all the credit.
We've done our bit.
The organisations that are ourmembers are the boots on the
ground doing the work bringingin the cars, installing the
(06:18):
stuff, making the stuff.
Our role is to help to ensurethat they're doing that in a
policy-friendly environment, toensure that the regulations and
rules are match fit and to helpthem meet each other when they
need to collaborate.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Great Ross.
So one of the reasons webrought you here is to tackle
one of the more difficultproblems in the EV transition,
which is getting electricvehicle charging infrastructure
into residential apartmentbuildings.
So, just to set the scene alittle bit, 10.5% of Aussies
(06:52):
live in apartment buildings.
That's 2.6 million of us andthere's approximately 1.2
million apartment dwellings inAustralia.
So a pretty staggering numberof electric vehicle charges that
we expect to go in are going toneed to go into this sector,
and it's proven to be one of themore difficult areas to enable
(07:14):
EV charging for a whole varietyof reasons.
So, to set the scene a littlebit, I think it's helpful just
to step through what a typicalpathway would look like for
apartment building to installthis infrastructure, and it
typically starts with an ownerbuying an EV or considering the
purchase of an EV.
They start rattling on the cageof the strata manager and the
(07:35):
strata committee saying how do Icharge my electric vehicle?
And that triggers a whole bunchof questions where there's no
easy answer in terms of what arethe options, what needs to be
done to enable this person tocharge their Tesla and you know
the rest of the owners to beable to charge the electric
vehicles in the future.
(07:56):
So usually a feasibility studyis conducted at that stage,
which is something thatSolarJoyce has completed across
most of the states in Australia,which is something that Solid
Joyce has completed across mostof the states in Australia, and
that then leads into the nextsteps, which often look like the
committee picking one optionthat they think is most suited
(08:17):
to their owners and goingthrough the process to get that
approved.
And the approval process can beone of the more challenging
steps, as for many projects inStrata.
So people probably aren't toounfamiliar that it's well known
as a difficult area to getprojects done because it needs
to go to an all-owner vote.
The voting thresholds in NewSouth Wales, for example, is a
(08:41):
50% vote for these projects, butit's a 75% vote in Queensland
and Victoria and the otherstates in Australia sort of sit
somewhere in between.
And in the process of gettingthose votes you start to get the
objectors.
Sometimes there's people inthese buildings with their own
agendas, buildings with theirown agendas.
(09:06):
We've, you know, seen this somany times play out where one
owner will, will call out thoseconcerns around fire insurance,
different things to try andderail the project.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Sometimes they're legitimate concerns, sometimes
they've got their own agenda andthey don't want to go down the
path of electric vehicles andsometimes their concerns are
based on misinformation thatthey've picked up somewhere
along the way, when they've beentrying to, in good faith,
educate themselves, which is areal problem in the industry as
well.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
And so if someone's lucky enough to get through all
of those steps, and sometimestheir concerns are based on
misinformation that they'vepicked up somewhere along the
way when they've been trying to,in good faith, educate
themselves.
Their concerns are based ondisinformation.
Finally, they need to find anelectrical contractor that's got
experience and can install thisjob well and with the reality
of all of those steps being sodifficult.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
There's very few electrical contractors with the
right sort of experience toquote these jobs accurately, to
deliver them without disruption.
So it's a very complex area buta very crucial one that we're
going to need to get right inAustralia to enable this EV
transition.
So I mean, is that an accurateoverview from your perspective,
(10:15):
ross?
I mean these projects can takemany shapes, but, yeah, anything
you would add to that.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Yeah, yeah, well, look, I'll start at the top.
Yes, it is a tricky area Ifyou're thinking about a person
who owns an EV and wants to beable to charge it at home.
If they are in the threequarters of the population that
live in a standalone house witha driveway or a garage, whether
they're owning or renting, theirpathway is pretty
straightforward, right.
They'll likely already have a10-hour power point in the
(11:03):
garage they can use or they caninstall an EV charger.
The apartment complex is achallenge because of the common
property angle.
You've got an environment whereyou have your parking space
perhaps not physically connectedto your dwelling, and it's just
not easy to run electricityfrom your dwelling metre supply
to your car parking space.
(11:23):
That's not always the case.
Not all strata is identical.
If we're talking about strata,that's five or six units like
flats that are sitting on aproperty that used to be a house
and your carport is right nextto your unit.
In that setting, ev charging isnot much different to a
standalone home.
So some of those million plusdwellings will be
straightforward to execute, butothers are going to look more
(11:46):
like.
My apartment is on the 15thfloor, my allocated parking
space is on the third basementfloor and there is no way to run
an extension lead from floor 15to floor minus three.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, I think that sort of leads into another
problem, which is a lot ofowners don't sort of understand
this common property challengeand whether there's power supply
constraints to the building.
And we've commonly come acrossbuildings where they have
decided to let the first one ortwo owners put in a cable and
(12:18):
connect a wall box charger intheir own parking bay.
But the potential problem inthe future that not everyone is
going to be able to do thatwithout subsequently, in five or
10 years, overloading the powersupply to the building.
So it sort of delivers a firstmover advantage.
These people who can get thesecharges in before triggering any
power supplies will have theirinfrastructure.
(12:38):
And then the later adopterscome along and say, well,
they've got one, I would likeone, and and maybe the power
supply is not there yet.
So there are solutions to thatwith load management, but it
requires an understanding and aplan executed by the building at
the outset, without sort ofgoing down these piecemeal
(12:59):
problems.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah.
So I think that there's animportant piece there where the
average EV driver is neither anelectrician nor an engineer.
So we should not be assumingthat the driver, or indeed the
people on the owners' committee,who are average citizens like
the rest of us, are notnecessarily going to have the
full technical understanding.
They're going to needassistance in that domain from
consultants, from expertcontractors, from folks like
(13:23):
yourselves, to help work throughthat challenge.
The piece about first moveradvantage.
If you think about an oldapartment building, so one built
some time back when airconditioning was not a thing and
when the supply of heatingenergy for heating the building
and also for heating the waterwas gas, the electrical supply
(13:44):
to that building is likely to bepretty slim.
So if the residents of thatbuilding all want to install
induction cooktops or all wantto install air conditioners,
that's going to promote the samekinds of challenges as the
residents of that building orwanting to buy EVs.
It is almost always going to bethe case that there is some
spare capacity in the buildingin the middle of the night
(14:05):
without an electrical upgrade.
How much spare capacity thereis is going to vary.
Building by building A newbuilding built with the
assumption that every home has asplit system, there's going to
be plenty of capacity there forcharging EVs off-peak.
It's just about scheduling.
An old building may not be thecase.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned
the design Didn't take this intoconsideration.
Through our feasibility studies, we've probably put data
loggers on close to 100residential apartment buildings
now and can't say that there'sany real pattern or consistency
around the power supplyavailable to the number of
(14:43):
apartments.
It seems to be like in certainstates there's no pattern.
It's purely case by case to seewhat sort of capacity is left.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, and a good example, which actually
contradicts what you just said,ross, which is a building that
we're currently working withwhich is a three or
four-year-old site pretty luxuryapartments in a Sydney area
where you know they would bedesigning that building.
They should have been designingthat building with these types
of problems in mind and they'vegot slim to no spare electrical
capacity and even though it'sonly a three year old building,
(15:13):
they have no power goinganywhere near the basement car
park.
So there's also an element ofluck of the draw with apartment
buildings as well.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
So to give some context on that, I live in a
reasonably large standalonehouse.
I've got 63 amps three-phase tomy house.
The supply to these apartmentswas 100 amps three-phase split
across 20 homes and it's enoughright up until you're installing
any significant electrical kitand then it's not enough anymore
.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, once you start lifting the doors to these
switchboards in residentialapartment buildings, you find
some very strange setups.
Yeah, it just seems likethere's no rhyme or reason to it
.
But, ross, there is a wholerange of solutions for
retrofitting EVSE into apartmentbuildings, I think you know.
(16:00):
Perhaps one of themisconceptions is EV charging is
a wall box, it requires a lotof cabling, it's going to be
potentially a multiple hundredthousand dollar project and
there is actually a range ofdifferent ways in which owners
can charge their cars anddoesn't always lead to such a
(16:22):
huge price tag.
So what are the different waysthat could look?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yeah, absolutely so I'd say there is some good
independent advice from NewSouth Wales government in
particular on this one.
New South Wales government arerunning a grants program at the
moment for EV ready buildings.
But before they kicked off thegrants program they did a pile
of work with us and with OwnersCorporation to produce some
really useful guidance as to thevariety of ways this challenge
(16:46):
can be tackled.
Pathways forward for anapartment building varies widely
depending on the building.
We were talking about simplestrata before.
So flats of small number whereyou've got a carport In that
setting a power point or a sevenkilowatt wall box on the side
of the house in the carport areacan work.
In a bigger building you mightstart with a shared charger in a
(17:09):
visitor's car parking area asan interim step to working out
what to do next, because there'sa means to make some movement
forward.
That isn't going to sustainforever because if you've got
100 cars parking in thatbuilding the long term doesn't
look like all those peoplesharing one facility, but it can
get you started on the journey.
And the other point you madearound first mover advantage
(17:29):
there will be buildings wherethere is sufficient capacity in
terms of the infrastructure andthe network connection to let
some percentage of the peoplemove without it costing a
fortune.
So, depending on how the owner'scorporation wants to tackle it,
one reasonable strategy is tosay we're going to design a
solution here as a modularapproach, as an interim step
(17:52):
that'll solve for the first 15or 20% of people, right, and
we're going to do thatreasonably cheaply.
And here's how and here's theby bylaws.
And then once we get to 20% ofthe people having EVs, we know
that that solution is going tobe tapped out.
It's not going to work pastthat point, but we'll deal with
that in five or ten years whenwe get to that point.
And once you get to that point,succeeding in that 50% or 75%
(18:15):
vote in the owners corporationbecomes a bit easier, because at
that point you've got 20% ofthe residents of the building
owning EVs and maybe 50%thinking, yeah, an EV is going
to be my next car.
We do actually need to fix this.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah, and just to provide some colour at the very
sort of simple and cheap end ofthe spectrum to put a powerpoint
into parking bays, depending onhow the building's set up, of
course.
We've seen quotes as low asfour thousand dollars to set up
a car park for eight parkingbays.
So obviously there's a lot ofhigh rises and much bigger
(18:50):
buildings but there's a hugeamount of, you know, 10
apartment walk-up departmentbuildings dotted around sydney
and melbourne and brisbane thataren't necessarily looking at a
hundred thousand dollars toenable EV charging.
It could be a pretty simpleproject putting a PowerPoint
into everyone's parking bay, andwe've seen, as the votes have
been conducted on some of theseprojects, that PowerPoint is
(19:12):
actually attractive for non-EVowners because then they can
vacuum their car or plug afridge into their parking bay or
do something else with thatPowerPoint as well.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Yeah, so I'll be clear.
This is not a silver bulletkind of a problem.
It is a buckshot kind of aproblem.
There are lots and lots of waysto peel this particular
vegetable, the PowerPoint in thecommon car parking area.
The only note I would say thereis if the PowerPoint's being
fed by common property power,then there's got to be a way to
(19:42):
make sure that the personcharging their car is paying
their way.
Otherwise you'll run very, veryquickly into perfectly
reasonable fairnessconsiderations.
There's lots and lots of waysto do that.
Plenty of products out there,plenty of methods to do it.
Not saying it's a problem, it'sjust something that needs to be
front of mind, becauseotherwise what you'll get is
(20:04):
those individuals who areperhaps unfriendly to EVs
generally will quite reasonablylatch onto it and say why am I,
as a resident, paying for thatperson to charge their car?
I wouldn't contribute to theirpetrol bill.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
I think that's triggered a lot of the
feasibility studies we'vecompleted has been the existing
early adopters of EVs plugginginto the car wash bay or a spare
common area power point that'savailable in the car park
already and triggering that sortof discomfort amongst the other
(20:33):
owners that are effectivelychipping in for for this person
to charge their EV.
I remember about six or sevenyears ago when I was driving an
EV around Sydney.
I lived in a couple ofapartment buildings that I
rented at the time.
One of them, I ended upthrowing an extension cord off
the third story balcony to do anemergency charge when I had
(20:55):
gotten too low.
There was definitely a fewtimes when I had gotten too low.
There was definitely a fewtimes when I drove the car into
the car wash bay at 8pm andsnuck it out again at 5am in the
morning before anyone hadnoticed.
But if there was any otheroption for me to pay and charge
my own bay, I would have happilydone it.
But these types of guerrillacharging that people are forced
into to enable them to have anEV.
(21:17):
So it's sort of fair to saythat one way or another every
apartment building in Australiawill have to solve this problem,
whether it's in the next twoyears, the next five years, the
next 15 years.
It's unrealistic to think thatapartment owners will all be
using public infrastructure tocharge their car right.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeah.
So look what I would observethere is that individual
buildings will make their ownchoices.
It may be the case that somebuildings, for whatever reason,
choose not to support EVcharging within the building.
It is ultimately a choice forthe owners in the building to
make.
The observation that we'd makethere is that if the building
(21:57):
doesn't support any EV chargingat all, then the people who do
switch to EVs to your point willneed to charge their car
somewhere else.
That'll mean off the property,it'll mean less convenient,
it'll probably mean slightlymore expensive, but the real
impact on the owners of thatbuilding will be property prices
.
Because if someone isconsidering an apartment they
want to buy and they're thinkingthey might own an EV, one of
(22:18):
the things they're really goingto want to be able to do is
charge their car in theirallocated parking space.
If someone's renting anapartment and they own an EV and
renting in apartments is very,very common, right.
So overall in this countryabout one third of people rent,
but in apartments the renterpopulation is much, much higher
If you're owning an EV andrenting the place you live, you
(22:40):
absolutely will want to be ableto charge that car in your
allocated parking space.
An apartment complex thatdoesn't enable it will see
reduced property value and theowners will see reduced rental
yield.
So that's kind of the that'sthe fundamental piece that's
going to drive it.
It's the desire amongst thepeople who own the property to
have that property retain valueand to be able to collect a
(23:02):
sensible amount of rent.
Vast majority of buildings willfollow the money and follow the
resident's wishes and supportit.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, and I think that's something that probably
every year for the next 10 yearsis gonna be felt more and more
by apartment owners.
We find ourselves talking toclients about what you've just
been saying there and saying,look, this is something that's
going to affect property values.
It's going to affect how muchyou can charge to a renter soon
and it's also going to affectthe resale value.
But I think for a lot ofproperty owners right now that
(23:29):
still feels a bit theoreticalbecause they're not feeling the
impact of that.
If they're not selling theirapartment or relisting it in the
next six months, they're notreally sure that that's going to
affect them.
But as we move from the earlyadopters to the early majority
phase with EV uptake, there'sgoing to be more and more people
moving into apartments, eitherbecause they purchased them or
(23:49):
moving as a renter, wherethey'll be moving with an EV
already in tow, and thatquestion will become very real
for apartment owners.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Yeah, absolutely, and really it's just a question of
how long does it take for EVs tobecome large enough in quantity
that they move that particularneedle?
It took a very long time to getto 1% of the on-road fleet
being electric.
It took a very, very smallamount of time comparatively to
reach 2% of the on-road fleet iselectric.
(24:19):
That's roughly where we're attoday, reaching 3% or 4%.
Maybe 12 months it'll take usto reach 3% or 4% of the
vehicles on road being electricby 2030, it'll be somewhere on
the order of 10% to 15%, andonce 10% to 15% of your
potential target market isshopping for a specific feature,
if you can't offer it, thatwill have a meaningful impact.
(24:41):
So yeah, to your point.
For a lot of apartment owners,that financial matter has not
yet been keenly felt, but it iscoming very, very fast and the
ones that are switched on knowit's coming and they're taking
steps accordingly so, ross,these projects say they build up
.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
You know the Strata Committee is often doing a lot
of research.
They're going through thefeasibility, they're getting the
options, maybe getting somequotes.
It all leads to a climacticpoint, which is the vote.
So they, you know, put a motionforward at an AGM or maybe they
conduct a special meeting totry and get this project
(25:20):
approved to enable EV chargingin their basement.
And that's when often in ourexperience you've seen some of
these objectors come out of thewoodworks.
They they receive someinformation about the project
for the first time.
They go hang on, this is 50grand.
I've just bought a, you know,maybe they've just bought a
(25:41):
brand new range rover petrol ormaybe they've got some other
reason to object against theproject.
And you see both rational and,in a lot of cases, very
irrational objections againstthe project.
And often one of the hot spotsfor that is is fire.
(26:02):
So people are concerned aboutthe fire risk of evs.
I mean that's broadly, as we,as we know, a misconception
around evs in general being afire risk.
But the introduction ofcharging an electric vehicle in
a a car park, um is, is broadlysomething that the average
(26:23):
punter doesn't really know ifthat is a risk or not.
But there's enough.
There's enough noise out thereto to generate a bit of a stir.
So what?
What do people need tounderstand about five risks of
charging an EV?
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah, sure.
So I say yes.
There is absolutely a lot offear, uncertainty and doubt
being spread by many partieswith respect to EVs.
This is not surprising.
The scale of the transition toEVs is huge.
As a country, we spend about$50 billion a year on new cars.
We also spend about $50 billiona year on petrol and diesel for
(27:01):
those cars.
Changing that $100 billion perannum spend is going to cause
lots and lots of impact to lotsand lots of stakeholders.
So it's not surprising thatthere's money behind the
campaign to say maybe we shouldslow this down.
In terms of the perceived risk,the data relating to EV fires is
really, really clear.
(27:22):
Evs are far less likely to burnthan petrol or diesel cars.
In the handful of instances inAustralia where the battery in
an EV has gone up and when I sayhandful, like seven instances
when the battery in an EV hasgone up on a fleet of 300,000
vehicles there has been massiveexternal influence.
(27:42):
The things that have causedthose fires have been high speed
car crash, arson, the vehiclebeing disassembled by someone
who doesn't know what they'redoing and then being left in the
rain.
That's the kind of thing thathas caused the fires.
And when the fires havehappened.
They've been put out by ourbrave firefighters using water
and foam.
The same way, generally theytackle car fires.
For context, fire Rescue NewSouth Wales rolls out to about
(28:05):
seven vehicle fires every day.
Vehicle fires are very, verycommon.
They're not news.
They just make the news whenthey're electric cars Seven
every day.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
that's probably gonna surprise a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah.
So two and a half thousandincidences a year, more or less,
is what fires in Wales roll outto in vehicle fires.
That's information in theirannual report.
Ev fires, by comparison, very,very rare, but it is new and it
is different, and new anddifferent can cause people to
worry.
This is why we go to the dataon these matters.
New South Wales Parliament didsome work relatively recently.
(28:40):
The Stay Safe Committee did apiece of work after two
unrelated incidents in New SouthWales, so there's some public
information there.
The other thing that we'd giveguidance on is for a building.
Really, it's the insurer thatneeds to be contacted.
If you're doing retrofit workof EV charging in a building,
that is fundamentally electricalwork and it's regulated as
(29:03):
electrical work.
So you get a contractor to doit.
They do all the safe things,they do all the paperwork and
that's what the regulatory sidelooks like.
If your insurer is comfortablewith putting EV charging in the
basement, then that reallyshould be enough for the owner's
corporation.
The guidance we'd give there is, if your insurer is reading the
fear, uncertainty and doubt andhas problems or has concerns,
(29:24):
that's a trigger to call yourbroker and find a different
insurer to talk to.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
And so just looping back to the fire for a second.
So if you put yourself in theshoes of a Strata committee
member who's putting togetherthis project to take to a motion
, what regulations will thesolution need to comply with?
Are there any regulationsspecific to electric vehicle
charging or electric vehicles incar parks?
Speaker 3 (29:49):
So electric vehicle charging is electrical work, so
you absolutely have to have alicensed electrician do the
installation work.
Ultimately, in terms ofregulatory compliance, if you
want to install EV charging in abuilding, you can call an
electrician and the electriciancan install the equipment.
This is the basic regulatoryreality today.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
And is there any need to engage with a fire engineer?
Speaker 3 (30:17):
So often is going to be asked, and again this is
because of all the fear anddoubt that is being spread.
But in terms of a retrofit ofelectrical equipment to a
building, generally speaking theanswer is no.
Generally, electrical work doesnot trigger the requirement for
a fire engineer or a buildinginspector to be involved.
This doesn't mean that buildingsurveyors aren't agitating to
(30:39):
change those rules in order tomove the goalposts on that so
that they should be involved,and there's some fairly obvious
self-interest at play there.
But the current state of playis that electrical work is
electrical work Very, verydifferent.
If you're talking about a newbuilding, if you're building a
new structure or you'reundertaking significant
structural work, that is thekind of thing that does trigger
building inspectors and consentprocesses with fire services.
(31:02):
So a new building, very, verydistinct from established in
terms of the regulatoryframework that bounds it.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
I think the challenge is that these projects are so
tough to get over the line.
You know that process we talkedabout earlier.
We're talking about a yearjourney in a lot of cases to get
from that initial EV owner allthe way through the steps and
the objections through to an AGMand get the right vote and
actually conduct the projectthrough to an AGM and get the
right vote and actually conductthe project.
(31:30):
We've seen obviously muchshorter than that, but you know
it's not uncommon for theseprojects to stretch out over
multiple years.
We've found it extremely toughin the strata sector to find
electrical contractors that areactually interested in getting
involved in an apartmentbuilding.
I guess like a challenging areato find specialists right like
(31:52):
we.
We.
I kind of see solar choice asone of the businesses that is
foolish enough to have created abusiness model around Strata
buildings and and providingservices to Strata buildings in
this way, because there are somany challenges there and
there's so much more low-hangingfruit with EV charges in the
commercial space and in yourstandalone houses.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Yeah, so look you point up a very, very sensible,
reasonable argument there.
The challenge for theelectrical contractor is that if
they are expending effort toprogress, the possibility of an
opportunity with no realcertainty that it's actually
going to turn into work beingdone and then being paid, that's
a problem for their business.
(32:36):
A project like this mightrequire a week's worth of work
from the electrical contractor,to quote up.
So if the owner's corporationis looking for three or four
different quotes in order topick from and is not actually
yet committed to, this is thething we're going to do.
Perfectly reasonable for thesensible electrical contractor
to say, yeah, that's a week'sworth of work I'm probably not
(32:56):
going to get paid for.
So how do we square that up?
The cure to that really lookslike the owner's corporation
being cognizant of thatchallenge, that operational
reality for the electricalcontractor, and perhaps being
willing to pay upfront forexpert consulting advice.
This is an area where, if theexpectation of the owners
(33:17):
corporation is that businesseswill invest significant effort
with limited certainty of apayday, that expectation is
going to meet the market realityof those folks choosing to
spend their time doing otherthings.
So the guidance there is reallyone of before asking businesses
to invest a pile of time inyour project.
Understand that they arebusinesses and that they are
(33:40):
looking for some certainty.
So it may be necessary tocommit some money up front
towards covering off the costsof feasibility and design.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, I think that's probably the path that we've
seen most common from electricalcontractors who actually do
have experience down here.
They know not to get burnt bythe tire kickers, by putting a
price tag on just gettingstarted on the building and sort
of why.
We've seen these types ofprojects being referred to as
(34:07):
the poisoned apple of EVcharging, in that they look very
attractive.
They could be a $100,000project.
You could be engaged with thishuge building.
To come back and do more EVcharges and work over the next
10 to 15 years Sounds great,right until you start getting
stuck in the weeds of trying toactually get some of these
projects over the line.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Yeah, look, this is the nature of navigating
projects in the domain, right?
It's not that EVs arecompletely unusual in this
respect.
Easy to imagine an apartmentcomplex might be giving
consideration to.
We're looking at that gasboiler and we're thinking about
changing it over to electric.
What's that going to look like?
And the same sort of processand thought is going to run to
(34:49):
it.
There's capital cost, there'sexpense.
There's expense, there'sdisruption.
The committee needs to bebrought on board.
This is a similar kind ofchallenge to parallel challenges
in that regard, yeah, very much.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
so I thought maybe just to wrap up, we might step
away from apartments just for amoment and get your views on
what's to come, because you dospend a lot of time thinking
about all sorts of EV chargingproblems, not just departments
that we focused on today.
What can people expect to seefrom the insights that you have,
being a real industry insider,in 5, 10, 15 years?
(35:21):
What is this industry going tolook like for us in Australia?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Sure.
Well, I guess my observation isit's going to be awesome, right
, the reason I'm in thisindustry it's going to be really
, really fun to work in andwe're going to do a lot of
meaningful work.
We've got about 300,000 EVs onthe road towards the start of
next year.
I think we'll touch thatthreshold.
We've just crossed over 100,000sold this year.
So the future is going toinvolve millions of EVs.
(35:46):
That's going to be the dominantform of personal road transport,
as opposed to it being petroland diesel cars.
That doesn't mean that EVs aregoing to be the only vehicles on
the road.
There'll be people drivingaround in Holden Commodores on
club plates for a good longwhile yet, in the same way that
we've seen people in Model TFords driving around on club
plates.
So it's not to the exclusion ofall else.
(36:07):
It's going to become thedominant form of car.
We're going to see EVs enterinto the truck and bus sector in
a big way.
The transition of diesel busesfor public transport to electric
is already well underway and isonly going to speed up.
We're seeing supermarkets runelectric trucks for local
(36:28):
delivery.
We'll see local governmentsrunning electric garbage trucks.
If it's on wheels and it's onthe road.
It's going to move to electricover the next 15, 20 years.
The other big thing that'scoming is vehicle to grid, which
I think you guys have talkedabout a little bit before.
The scale of the batteries inthe cars over time is going to
(36:49):
be such that they are thebiggest form of storage
connected to the energy system.
To wrap some numbers aroundthis, we've got about 15 million
cars in the country.
If we had each of themexporting at about five
kilowatts roughly the size of atypical single phase household
solar inverter that combinedexport is more than double the
(37:09):
peak demand in the entire energysystem.
So we can't actually have afuture where all the cars export
.
We don't have that much demandin the system, even on the
hottest of afternoons.
V2g, done well, is how we canbring forward the closure of
coal and gas-fired power plants,and that's the climate mission.
That's the reason we're doingthe transition to EVs.
So you've got one half, whichis let's stop burning petrol and
(37:29):
diesel the climate mission.
That's the reason we're doingthe transition to EVs.
So you've got one half, whichis let's stop burning petrol and
diesel, and the other half isfantastic.
We can run these things onsolar and wind.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
We no longer need to burn coal and gas there's a lot
to be excited about,particularly for those of us who
live and breathe renewables,but as time will go on, I think
everyone's gonna reallyunderstand the scope of the
opportunity and the impact it'sgoing to have on everyday life,
the environment, all the thingsthat we love about living in
Australia and inhabiting thisplanet.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Completely agree and thank you for having me on the
show.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
It's been a pleasure.
Thanks so much for your time,ross, and we'll keep looking out
for all the great work thatyou're doing at the EVC Cheers.
Have a great day, thanks, ross.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
So that's it, and thanks for listening to this
episode of the EV ChargingPodcast Brought to you as always
by Solar Choice, australia'sonly instant quote comparison
service for solar EV chargers,heat pumps, batteries and air
conditioning systems.
We also provide independentconsultation and tender
management for clean energyprojects in commercial and
(38:35):
strata buildings, with over 17years of experience.
Find out more atsolarchoicenetau and stay tuned
for the next episode in twoweeks.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
If you think this is the best podcast you've ever
heard in your life, maybesomeone else will too.
Make sure you share an episodeand leave us a review on your
favorite podcast app.
See you in two weeks.
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