National Electric Vehicle Strategy: consultation paper

Submission
“National Electric Vehicle Strategy”
Executive Summary
Electric Vehicle adoption in Australia will bring about multiple changes, for both good and ill. Coupled with the phasing out of natural gas and LPG, the significant increase in electrical demand across the entire electricity grid needs to be planned for, and solutions incentivised now. All of the changes and upgrades to Australia’s These sidebars give infrastructure that will be required as a result of these two initiatives will also need to a one-minute be replicated, in miniature, thousands of times in every strata development: like a city, synopsis, as both a they were designed and supplied around a particular electrical load, which may no readable story and longer be sufficient. However, whereas cities have taxpayers to share the cost burden, a summary of each strata developments only have the owners. In an attempt to minimise the up-front paragraph.
cost, Owner Corporations will make decisions that will significantly increase their end cost – and, more importantly, increase the burden on the electrical infrastructure. By incentivising the correct approach now, that burden can be minimised.

Introduction
Australia is in a fortunate position. As a relatively new country, much of its infrastructure is fairly modern and well planned, unlike older countries where compromises have had to be made over time. The Electric Vehicle (EV) revolution will Australia is demonstrate this perfectly, as infrastructure is necessarily modified and added to fortunate.
accommodate the required EV chargers.

Most residents will “just add an EV charger”, as though it were a new appliance like a television. It is a new appliance, but it is nothing like a television. It is more akin to an air conditioner system, since it (usually) needs its own dedicated circuit – and even then it uses two or three times the power of an AC. And within the next ten years, just But EVs need to be about everyone is going to be getting one. This obviously has implications for total planned for now.
electrical demand on the city’s electricity grid: unless it is planned for now, serious problems will occur in the future.

The demand on the electricity grid will be exacerbated by another shift in Australia’s electricity usage, as natural gas and LPG will be phased out. As gas appliances are replaced by electrical equivalents, it is important to appreciate that those gas appliances are all significant consumers of energy: cooktops and ovens, hot water Moving from systems, and heating. The fundamental base load of Australia’s electricity grid will natural gas and increase considerably. Also note that these appliances are used as needed – that is, LPG will on demand as per social norms such as mealtimes and bath time – with little exacerbate the opportunity to “time shift” their usage. This aspect is one feature of EV chargers that problem – but EVs needs to be leveraged to “even out” the total load demand. Another advantage of EV can help.
chargers is that they can easily trade electrical demand for time: unlike when cooking a roast, they can halve their peak consumption by doubling the charge duration.

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Submission
“National Electric Vehicle Strategy”
Background
A government report (United Energy, 2015) stated that:

Over the last 15 years, air-conditioning (cooling) has been a One appliance has
significant influence, causing maximum demand to switch from previously
winter to summer across the entire UE network. significantly
impacted the
To be clear: one appliance, arguably discretional, caused a significant shift in power
electricity grid.
usage. EV chargers, which arguably will be mandatory, over the next 15 years are going to be installed everywhere. We need to plan for this now.

There are four kinds of EV chargers, with increasing demand loads, but only the first three are suitable for domestic use (Adriaan, 2021):

1) The portable charger, which plugs into a normal electrical power socket EV chargers are
(10 Amps or 2.4 kW); not your typical
2) A standard wall charger, on a dedicated circuit (32 Amps or 7.2 kW); appliance.
3) An enhanced, three-phase wall charger (96 Amps or 22 kW);
4) A “super charger” with dedicated infrastructure (50 kW and above).

Regardless of type, one aspect of an EV charger is that its usage is quite different from other appliances: by default, it uses its maximum demand for hours on end. Most other appliances will have variable demand patterns (an oven isn’t on full power for the They use a lot of whole roast), which offers for them a statistical advantage – multiple residences power for a long wouldn’t necessarily overlap, inherently “evening out” the demand. This cannot be period of time.
said for EV chargers, since the usage duration is so long.

When designing a house, the electrician can make assumptions about a family’s usage of electricity. When designing a large apartment block, a similar calculation can be made, but allowance is made for “usage diversity”: the assumption that everyone The “law of won’t use their ovens at the same time. That means that a 100-unit apartment building averages” helps.
isn’t expected to use a hundred times the electricity at peak usage.

Instead, an average is applied, which is different by region, climate and even luxury level to calculate electricity demand according to many studies c.f. (Roberts, Haghdadi,
Bruce, & MacGill, 2019). A common average is 4 to 6 kW per apartment – but that is usually increased to 5 to 7 kW if each apartment has an electric hot water system But you have to versus a gas one. Note that this exception is presently only made for hot water systems, account for and no other appliance (it used to allow for AC, but that was simply folded in: exceptions.
“everyone” has one now). Given EV chargers’ high kW figure and long usage time, it would be fair to assume that these are going to have to be added as a large exception in the future.

Therefore, an apartment complex that was designed and built with gas hot water and no EVs would have been supplied by a suitably sized electrical substation. Given that both assumptions will change over the next twenty years, there will be a 40-50% And EV chargers increase in demand, which would seriously overload the substation unless measures are a big are taken to limit it. One quote that we have received is that a single substation exception.
replacement would cost $500,000.

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Submission
“National Electric Vehicle Strategy”
Not everyone is
Houses versus Strata Developments equal.
According to UNSW (Australasian Strata Insights, 2020), 13% of Australian households are apartments. Strata developments also include townhouses and other medium- to high-density housing. They all have the same issues, and the current trend is an Many people live increase in medium-density housing. In many respects, a strata development is a city- in strata in-microcosm: whatever adaptations are needed for a city are also needed in a strata developments.
development.

A house owner usually has many options for EV charging. A power point is always available nearby for a portable charger, and adding a wall EV charger is usually fairly straightforward. An electrician can easily add a circuit to the switchboard, run a cable, House owners drill holes in a wall, and mount the charger. If there are issues like the whole-house have great load is close to the limit, then smart devices can be added that adjust the charger’s flexibility.
output as the house load changes to prevent the limits from being reached. And a house owner can always add solar panels and batteries to offset the electrical usage.

An owner in a strata development has none of a house owner’s flexibility. Most car spaces in strata developments don’t even have a power point for a portable charger, and many spaces are out in an open communal area with no place to mount one – let alone a wall charger. Also, most car spaces are a large distance from the owners’ switchboards, requiring a significant cable run, often through multiple floors. This is necessary so that the charger’s electrical usage can be correctly metered. The further Strata owners… the distance, the thicker and more expensive the cable has to be to handle the same don’t.
load. Plus, the owner has to go through an application process via the Owners
Corporation, since this work is undoubtedly in common area property. And of course there is no opportunity for an owner in a multi-storey block to install solar panels, since the roof area does not belong to them.

And yet owners in strata developments are going through this process today, since they have no real alternative and “that’s the way it’s done in a house”. They are To get an inferior spending thousands of dollars – instead of the hundreds that a house owner typically solution, strata needs – to install only a simple power point: the power demands of a wall charger owners will spend would make the cable run for one of these prohibitive. significantly more.

The effect is to increase the strata development’s total electrical load in an unsustainable way. Every such installation is independent from the other And that solution apartments, so it directly adds to the strata development’s total electrical demand: directly impacts the existing demand limit will be reached that much sooner. demand – poorly.

Meanwhile, most strata developments have so-called “house” power available in the carpark for lighting and maybe a power point or two for a quick run with an air Is there an compressor, vacuum or power washer – but anyone trying to use this to charge an EV alternative?
would be quickly told to cease.

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Submission
“National Electric Vehicle Strategy”
The Alternative
However, that house power is usually much more readily accessible to connect to, if only the metering issue could be resolved. And it can: there are EV charger control systems that can solve many of the problems already described:
The superior
1) The system can meter and invoice individuals for their electricity;
solution is to use a
2) The system can monitor the whole development’s current electrical load and
smart controller.
control the chargers so that the electrical limits are not reached;
3) Communal solar panels and batteries can be installed by the Owners
Corporation to offset the chargers’ consumption.

The advantages are obvious: the owner can spend less money for the installation; the With cost and load on the development’s infrastructure is lessened; and the city’s infrastructure infrastructure doesn’t need to be upgraded as soon. advantages.
The biggest disadvantage for the owner is that very few EV chargers interface to these control systems. The ones that do are usually commercial units that cost much more than the ones used for houses. But also, the Owners Corporation needs to spend But there are other money up front to install the EV charger controller system and cable it in – and that is costs.
not cheap.

We have seen multiple proposals for apartment complexes of $2,500 per apartment for just the control system and necessary cabling. The owners then have to spend a similar amount to install a commercial EV charger and connect it to the infrastructure Which can be as well. No wonder most Owners Corporations are simply letting individual owners significant.
solve their problem as if they were in a house.

The options available to strata developments have been nicely summarised in the NSW
Government’s “Energy Saver” report (NSW Government, 2022), in the section “The 5 There are options steps to EV readiness”. These options are based on scale and cost; but those are not depending on the only considerations for a holistic view of EV adoption. scale.

Recommendations Recommendations:
This submission has one main recommendation:

A) Significant funds need to be offered to existing strata developments to allow
them to install up-front infrastructure now. This will head off the alternative
piecemeal approach that is currently happening, that slowly increases strata
Financial help; and
developments’ electrical “footprint” in an unsustainable way. Without these
funds to incentivise the adoption of smart controllers, the city infrastructure
supplying the developments will need to be upgraded at a much higher cost
that much sooner.

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Submission
“National Electric Vehicle Strategy”
Other recommendations include:

B) All future strata developments should be mandated to include facilities to
support Electric Vehicle chargers – and not via a generic statement. Specific
features need to be called out, such as mandatory power to all car spaces, and Planning changes.
smart charger controllers to reduce the load on the infrastructure;
C) The guidelines for the sizing of substations needs to be increased, so that they
do not need to be replaced when they become inadequate in the future.

Conclusion
Strata developments are markedly different from houses, with many challenges for the unit owners. However, they do offer the opportunity for economies of scale – assuming Apartments aren’t this is actually leveraged. Current thinking for installation of EV chargers in strata houses, but they developments seems to be to replicate what is done for houses, even though that is can be much more much more expensive, much more inefficient, and will result in a larger future burden efficient… for the city’s electrical infrastructure.

However, the more efficient, ultimately cheaper, and better long-term solution unfortunately has a high up-front cost for the strata owners: to install a smart …if the up-front controller for all the EV chargers. That cost will dissuade many from investing in this money is spent to solution, so the government needs to step in and incentivise this superior approach. allow it.

References
Adriaan, J. (2021). Electric Vehicles in Apartments. Retrieved August 20, 2022, from
https://JohnAdriaan.blog/Apartment-EVs

NSW Government. (2022). Making Your Residential Strata Building EV Ready. Retrieved August 20,
2022, from https://www.energysaver.nsw.gov.au/reducing-emissions-nsw/electric-
vehicles/electric-vehicle-ready-buildings/making-your-residential-strata-building-ev-
ready#the-5-steps-to-ev-readiness

Roberts, M. B., Haghdadi, N., Bruce, A., & MacGill, I. (2019). Cluster-based characterisation of
Australian apartment electricity demand and its implications for low-carbon cities. UNSW.
Retrieved August 20, 2022, from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332959281_Characterisation_of_Australian_apa
rtment_electricity_demand_and_its_implications_for_low-carbon_cities

United Energy. (2015). Maximum Demand Overview Paper. Retrieved August 20, 2022, from
https://www.aer.gov.au/system/files/United%20Energy%20-
%20Maximum%20Demand%20Overview%20Paper%20-%20April%202015.pdf

UNSW. (2020). Australasian Strata Insights. UNSW. Retrieved August 20, 2022, from
https://cityfutures.ada.unsw.edu.au/research/projects/2020-australasian-strata-insights/

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