SA Govt EV Network

[paulp]

Applications for site hosts now open

Businesses keen to plug into charging network

www.premier.sa.gov.au

Good document here

http://www.renewablessa.sa.gov.au/content/uploads/2021/05/20210514-ev-charging-network-prospectus-owners-and-tenants_visual.pdf

There is a good list in the prospectus of proposed towns for fast and destination chargers. The odd one is yunta. Its fairly much just a couple of servo’s on the road to broken hill. It should be a fast charger not a destination charger.
Its also comical to read some of the comments this has generated in the local media about why EV’s are still no good. Must be a competition going somewhere on who can make up the most extreme reason on why EV’s are not suitable for anyone.

 

[PC__LoadLetter]

There is a good list in the prospectus of proposed towns for fast and destination chargers. The odd one is yunta. Its fairly much just a couple of servo’s on the road to broken hill. It should be a fast charger not a destination charger.

Is there anything resembling a power grid in Yunta?

I've been wondering about hypothetical remote sites like that. It could have AC destination chargers running 24 hours off the local power grid (such as it is), and DC rapid chargers running off a nearby solar array but without any battery backup. Less infrastructure to maintain. Less upfront cost. No hilarious photos of DC chargers with a diesel generator attached.

Do we expect DC charging to even be required at night at obscure remote sites? At least at first?

And, moving forward, is it reasonable to only set up battery backup on one or two stalls, and run the rest off solar only?

 

[paulp]

Is there anything resembling a power grid in Yunta?

I've been wondering about hypothetical remote sites like that. It could have AC destination chargers running 24 hours off the local power grid (such as it is), and DC rapid chargers running off a nearby solar array but without any battery backup. Less infrastructure to maintain. Less upfront cost. No hilarious photos of DC chargers with a diesel generator attached.

Do we expect DC charging to even be required at night at obscure remote sites? At least at first?

And, moving forward, is it reasonable to only set up battery backup on one or two stalls, and run the rest off solar only?

Very good point. Yunta is off grid and has a generator with 60+ connections. Its two hours out of broken hill. The next town back is peterborough and its just under 300km to broken hill and will have fast dc chargers.
You mention night driving, that road is too slow at night. Generally 60kmh is the maximum with the roos unless you are in a truck. Maybe that would test out the tesla ‘fsd’.
One of the major criticisms from free for all local media comments is that 520 chargers is not enough. Clearly that will grow with demand as tesla and others are already showing, so yes having some on solar and some on battery will showcase the technology and remove the comments that electric cars are really coal fired cars

 

[moa999]

Arguably though the perfect opportunity to install a solar farm and battery sufficient for the Yunta township and some EV charging.

Diesel to run the generators is no doubt not cheap.

 

[paulp]

Arguably though the perfect opportunity to install a solar farm and battery sufficient for the Yunta township and some EV charging.

Diesel to run the generators is no doubt not cheap.

Back when we could leave australia, I visited a resort in fiji that had a staff and guest population larger than yunta, and they had done exactly that. A solar farm on the roof of the sprawling staff quarters with a tesla battery (are they called a powerbank?) and their old generator connected as backup

 

[David Sowden]

Have ANY of these Fast chargers been installed yet, OR is it all hot air?

 

[moa999]

No. Was pre-announcement of something that will be in the upcoming budget.
So until the budget no official funds.

And these types of things take time to get momentum.

 

[paulp]

Have ANY of these Fast chargers been installed yet, OR is it all hot air?

The announcement came with a 2 year rollout timeline. Governments tend to announce initiatives before they do them, not after

 

[Chuq]

There is a good list in the prospectus of proposed towns for fast and destination chargers. The odd one is yunta. Its fairly much just a couple of servo’s on the road to broken hill. It should be a fast charger not a destination charger.

I just had a look back through this document. Disappointing that the same applies to places like Glendambo, Marla, Yalata and Border Village. These highways are then effectively not fast charging electric highways if they are max 22 kW.

WA also has locations which are off grid and supply limited - their sites have 50 kW minimum. The equivalent SA sites need to be the same. Otherwise it's deceptive even having them on the map.

 

[paulp]

I just had a look back through this document. Disappointing that the same applies to places like Glendambo, Marla, Yalata and Border Village. These highways are then effectively not fast charging electric highways if they are max 22 kW.

WA also has locations which are off grid and supply limited - their sites have 50 kW minimum. The equivalent SA sites need to be the same. Otherwise it's deceptive even having them on the map.

Everything the SA gov do is deceptive, like announcing all gov cars will now be electric, and then proceeding to buy fossil cars. They signed up to cop 26 last month to reduce emmisions 50% by 2030, but this month announce a project that has no thought to reducing emmisions. Then last week adelaide became the worlds second largest national park city whilst the regulations were quietly changed to allow the government to wipe out 10 hectares of native vegetation on the metro beach dunes.

 

[Chuq]

Everything the SA gov do is deceptive

I can't really tell, but from the outside it looks like the Liberals are cashing in on the good decision Labor made (the Hornsdale battery etc)

 

[PC__LoadLetter]

I can't really tell, but from the outside it looks like the Liberals are cashing in on the good decision Labor made (the Hornsdale battery etc)

I’m not sure you can credit Labor for Hornsdale. It was almost a gift from Elon. Certainly not something they planned.

 

[RareEarth]

Well we are driving in from Broken Hill on Sunday, would have been really good to have a DCFC at Yunta.

 

[paulp]

I can't really tell, but from the outside it looks like the Liberals are cashing in on the good decision Labor made (the Hornsdale battery etc)

Not sure that labor gifting the battery to a french public company on completion was a great idea. The public only found out when neoen provided a list of assets for its IPO. Both as bad as each other.

 

[paulp]

Well we are driving in from Broken Hill on Sunday, would have been really good to have a DCFC at Yunta.

Agree. Yunta is a major rest point on the broken hill to Adelaide journey.

 

[RareEarth]

Could really have used a DCFC at Yunta today. Leaving Broken Hill there was torrential rain and a massive headwind, eating into our 20% buffer at an alarming rate. Had to really cut back on speed until the storm passed and the country flattened out over the border, even then stayed at 90 - 100kph.
If there had been a charger at Yunta we could have sustained a higher speed and stress levels would have been lower. Anyway made it into Peterborough and charging at the caravan park.

 

[scully]

Could really have used a DCFC at Yunta today. Leaving Broken Hill there was torrential rain and a massive headwind, eating into our 20% buffer at an alarming rate. Had to really cut back on speed until the storm passed and the country flattened out over the border, even then stayed at 90 - 100kph.
If there had been a charger at Yunta we could have sustained a higher speed and stress levels would have been lower. Anyway made it into Peterborough and charging at the caravan park.

Pretty unlucky to get torrential rain in Broken Hill. Did you get good speed on the new charger?

 

[RareEarth]

We were using the charger at the cottage (3 phase destination charger) so only plugged in for a few minutes, I think it was 53kW.

 

[Chuq]

I'm just planning an update to my "how will Aussie fast charging look in another 3 years" map.

I'm trying to differentiate mainly between 25 kW, 50 kW and 150-350 kW.

Based on the table below (from the prospectus) I'm going to make the broad assumptions that:

• Anything with 0 rapid highway chargers is going to have 25 kW DC chargers (this is a leap, as it says 7-22 kW AC, but I'll categorise as 25 kW DC for the purposes of my map - hopefully it ends up being these, it uses effectively the same power and is far more useful to most).
• Anything with 4 or more rapid highway chargers will be a busy high traffic route and will have at least one charger capable of 150 kW or more.

All the others (2 rapid highway chargers) I'll leave at 50 kW - although there is a chance that many could be faster we don't know which ones.

Does anyone have any further info that could help?

 

[RareEarth]

Is the local motoring association (RAA) active in pushing EV adoption? Staying in Adelaide at the moment and have looked at a copy of SA Motor, their magazine, there is not a mention of EVs or charging infrastructure.