EV street-light chargers: Qld company Wagners hails success of NSW trial in bid to expand electric vehicle network

EV chargers could be rolled out across regional Australia in the future, following the success of a trial.

EVX chief executive Andrew Foster uses the trial street-light EV charger in Port Macquarie, New South Wales. It was created as a collaboration between Essential Energy, Toowoomba firm Wagners and EVX.

Installing charging stations within power and lighting poles could speed up the rollout of electric vehicles across the Sunshine State.

That’s according to a major Queensland manufacturing firm, which wants to partner with Energy Queensland to deliver EV chargers as part of the routine replacement of electrical assets like utility poles and streetlights.

Toowoomba company Wagners, which currently manufactures and sells composite fibre (CFT) and fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) electrical assets across the world, is hailing the results of an EV charging-equipped light pole trial that has run in Port Macquarie.

The short trial, which ran for four weeks throughout May, was a collaboration between Wagners, regional NSW electrical network operator Essential Energy (EE) and charging company EVX.

The trial of the single street-light earnt a positive response from users, with nearly three-quarters saying they’d use something like it at least once per week while 80 per cent found it easy to use.

In a recently-released online webinar examining the results, EE innovation manager Bradley Trethewey said the design of the streelight charger would be refined for a second, longer-term trial with the view of rolling them out more broadly in the future.

“What we found is it validated the need for ubiquitous type-two EV public charging; the usage rate was extraordinarily high, the feedback was all positive and overall we feel it’s provided an opportunity for a reduction in street furniture,” he said.

“When you think about street-light columns across Australia, they’re an under-utilised asset during the day, and even at night-time there is still significant capacity (due to the transition to LED lighting).”

Wagners utility product lead James Lorrimer said the company was in talks with network operators like Energy Queensland to use its nonconductive, more durable and fire-resilient utility poles that could open the door for the innovation.

Essential Energy chief commercial officers Justin Hillier, EVX chief executive Andrew Foster and Wagners utility product lead James Lorrimer in front of the trial street-light EV charger in Port Macquarie, New South Wales. It was created as a collaboration between Essential Energy, Toowoomba firm Wagners and EVX.

“The interest is continuing to grow with various state based electric networks and we are hoping to be able to provide further updates in the coming weeks and months,” he said.

“Over the past 12 months, this project evolved into a remarkable success story.

“We combined our technology with our customers’ needs, and this is the first of its kind in Australia.”

Mr Lorrimer said he believed charging stations for cars and e-bikes could be implemented into other pieces of public infrastructure that could be built with CFT, like bollards, shade sail columns and marine piers.

“We are ready to tackle the next challenge, what does the future look like for EV charging?” he said.

“Imagine a world where you’re driving anywhere and there is EV charging stations housed inside composite-utility poles.”

It comes days after interim director of Monash Energy Institute Roger Dargaville argued rolling out household charging stations to a million homes could cost upwards of $10bn based on current consumer costs.

Originally published as EV street-light chargers: Qld company Wagners hails success of NSW trial in bid to expand electric vehicle network