Zero Carbon Charge recently launched South Africa’s first-ever off-grid electric vehicle charging station – and the company has aggressive plans to cover South Africa’s national roads with a network of 120 such stations in the next 12 months.
TechCentral recently attended the launch of the first station – 20km outside Wolmaransstad on the N12 between Johannesburg and Kimberley – and filed the video below, featuring on-site interviews with co-founders Joubert Roux and Andries Malherbe as well as several EV industry experts. Don’t miss it!
Watch the video
The Wolmaransstad site is the first in a R2.3-billion plan to build off-grid charging stations – which use no Eskom- or grid-supplied electricity – every 150km along South Africa’s national roads. The sites, offering a mix of fast DC (aimed at EVs) and slower AC (for plug-in hybrids) charging points, can supply up to 480kW of electricity to vehicles that support this. Like the first site in Wolmaransstad, each station will consist of a field of solar panels, a covered forecourt, and a coffee shop or farm stall where drivers can relax while they wait (typically no more than 25 minutes on the DC chargers).
Charge’s technology partners are China’s Greencore Energy Solutions and Magic Power, which provided the charging hardware for the Wolmaransstad charging station and which will supply the platform for the other charging stations that must still be built.
Founded by executive chairman Roux and director Malherbe, Zero Carbon Charge – which is rebranding itself simply as Charge – appears to have timed its entry into the market well, with plunging electric car prices, driven by new Chinese entrants into the market, expected to lead to a big uptick in EV sales in South Africa from next year.
Read: South Africa weighs subsidies and rebates to boost electric car sales
Charge has developed an app for Android and iOS that will give drivers a “seamless, user-friendly experience for managing their charging needs and transactions”.
Catalyst
“The Wolmaransstad charging facility, along with the entire network of 120 charging stations, will create an income stream for landowners on which these facilities are built. Landowners will earn 5% of the revenue generated from vehicles charging on their land,” the company said in a statement following the Wolmaransstad launch.
“We believe that the roll-out of our off-grid charging stations across the country will serve as a crucial catalyst for EV migration in South Africa,” said Roux in the statement.
“Our own research shows that an EV charged from Eskom’s predominantly coal-fired power grid indirectly emits 5.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. In comparison, an average petrol-powered car emits only 4.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. It is clear that the development of a network of off-grid, renewably powered EV charging stations is the only way we will reduce transport emissions in the country.”
Watch the video to learn more. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media
- There will be more on this story in this week’s edition of the Financial Mail
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