WA solar installer teams with EV company to offer “complete package”

One Step Off The Grid

Western Australia-based solar installer Infinite Energy has joined forces with electric vehicle infrastructure company JET Charge to supply its residential customers with EV charging solutions.

EVboxJETcharge

JET Charge, which is based in North Melbourne, is a leading supplier, installers and manager of electric vehicle charging infrastructure in Australia’s nascent EV market, and is a preferred local partner of Tesla and Volvo.

The two companies hope to bring EV charging infrastructure to the WA market, to support the uptake of electric vehicles in the state.

“We believe that electric vehicles will move towards dominating the vehicle market in the next five to 10 years,” said Infinite Energy CEO Shane Cremin in a statement last week.

“Electric Vehicle charging will complete the picture for Infinite Energy’s residential and commercial energy solutions, with solar, battery storage and retail electricity already part of our offering to the market,” he added.1465537953913

“We’re proud to partner with JET Charge to bring its world class charging infrastructure and expertise to WA.”

JET Charge founder Tim Washington believes the Australia’s west is in the perfect position for the take up of electric vehicles, with ample electricity generation capacity and high uptake of rooftop solar.

The company’s EV Box charger is billed by the company as one of the highest performing on the market, and features “smarts” such as demand response, load levelling, peaking demand shaving, and max amperage configuration.

It also includes a software platform, EV Connect, which gives users remote control of EV charging, via a mobile phone app.

Electric vehicles have been slow to take off in Australia, a situation that has been attributed to the comparatively high cost of the technology, as well as a lack of government incentives or supporting infrastructure.

Indeed, the Australian market has been so sluggish that many international car makers have stopped trying to sell their all-electric models here altogether, holding off until something shifts.

But momentum seems to be building, with Tesla’s Model X due to arrive on Australian shores by the end of the year, to be followed by the US company’s mass market vehicle, the Model 3.

This article was originally published on RE sister site One Step Off The Grid. To sign up for the weekly newsletter, click here.

Comments

3 responses to “WA solar installer teams with EV company to offer “complete package””

  1. Phil Avatar
    Phil

    The shaving and max amperage and other smarts are very interesting

    I can imagine in high insolation areas (Like Perth) that a second small vehicle that perhaps just moves the kids around and domestic duties being 100% electric or Hybrid .

    And using surplus solar panel output in an intelligent manner requiring no input ( apart from the initial setup) , from the consumer , and without “hogging the resource” to power the EV , is mandatory to make it work in the average household.

    I predict a huge success for this product as it seems at face value to overcome a lot of objections that consumers would have and makes the technology more transparent which is important to not confuse or overwhelm the consumer.

  2. Android Lover Avatar
    Android Lover

    I had heard that the slow uptake of EVs in Australia was partly due to less liberal laws around parallel importing. Per capita, New Zealand has almost 5 times as many EVs as Australia….with about half of these being Nissan LEAF cars parallel imported from Japan and the UK by individuals and secand-hand car dealers. I own such a car myself. Nissan doesn’t actually sell LEAFs in NZ since it dumped some two-year old model it picked up cheap a while back. Nissan in Manakau, south Auckland, do support parallel imports for parts and repairs…..but LEAF owners have found that maintenance is almost non-existent because the internals of the vehicles are so simple: electric motor, batteries, controller. Much more reliable and cheaper to service than any internal combustion engine car. No air filters. No oil or oil filters. No spark plugs or distributor. No gear box. No transmission fluid…..etc….etc. Even the brakes get an easy ride because the electric power regeneration in the engine means you often dont’ have to use the brakes at all……the car slows down gently when you take your foot off the accelerator and it generates electricity for the battery as it slows.

    So when you think of the cost of an EV like the LEAF…you have the purchase price…and some electricity ($1-$2 / day)…..and tyres….at least for the first 5 years.

  3. Ian Avatar
    Ian

    Only one thing missing, reasonably priced EV’s. All because there is only a handful of companies making a tiny fraction of the lithium batteries needed. The USA needs at least 20 gigafactories to cover their transportation carbonisation needs, let alone flicking a few EV’s our way. Does no one get it? We need billions of little lithium battery cells and hundreds of factories to produce them.

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