How To Get EV Chargers Everywhere

There are many factors to be considered when installing EV charging, but perhaps the most important is the ease of getting electricity to the chosen spot. Many boroughs in inner London are installing chargers in lampposts. It makes sense on streets full of houses without garages. The power is already available and the posts line up well with the curb. This is great innovative thinking for placing EV chargers everywhere.

Now, Ireland has gone one better, replacing little used public phone kiosks with EV chargers. “Ireland’s leading telecommunications company (eir) joined forces with Ireland’s largest car charging network provider (Easy go) to rollout these electric vehicle (EV) chargers in towns and cities across Ireland, and Carlow has proven itself to be the pioneer in adopting this program. The chargers in Carlow, Tullow and Bagenalstown have been installed to help Ireland’s growing fleet of EVs stay on the road. These have been installed at ZERO cost to Carlow County Council, with plans in place to roll these out in a number of other counties.”

The seven new EV chargers installed in Carlow are a mixture of dual 50kW DC (rapid) chargers supplied by Tritium and dual 22kW AC (destination) chargers. They are the first of 180 planned installs targeting not just urban but also rural areas. The Irish government plans to have 1 million EVs on the road by 2030.

“Wherever possible we will replace unused eir payphone kiosks with rapid EV charging units,” Oliver Loomes, CEO of eir, states. Ireland currently has a penetration rate of 12% plug-in vehicles. Like most countries, Ireland is seeking to reduce its carbon emissions and sees a move to EVs as an important part of Ireland’s Climate Action Plan.

We still have some public phones on the street in Australia. Perhaps Telstra could consider this sort of conversion, rather than just ripping out the ones that get little use.

EasyGo is actively recruiting other county councils to get behind the program — see the website for contact details.