Driving Change: South Australia’s Path to EV Adoption and Sustainable Energy

South Australia (SA) is vastly increasing its electric vehicle (EV) adoption in hopes of reaching its ambitious goal of all new car sales to be EV’s by 2040. Prominent entities such as SA Power Networks and The Department of Energy & Mining are currently working to increase infrastructure installation within SA to achieve this goal, with an expectation of 170,000 EV’s on the road by 2030. This is with a focus on accelerated initiatives such as Virtual Power Plants (VPP), Kerbside off-street parking and more public charging infrastructure at destination sites to help in overcoming range anxiety.

Considering these recent developments SA is well positioned to provide sustainable energy solutions to the EV uptake which will help lower the cost of EV ownership. Nearly 60% of all energy produced in SA is from renewable sources – making SA the state leader in this space. The state is committed to driving net zero by 2050, ensuring emissions from its main sources: transport and greenhouse gas emissions are progressively reduced through sustainable energy policies.

With more Chinese brands now entering the Australian market space, the conversation for owning an EV has never been better placed. With the likes of MG/BYD now providing electric vehicle options around the $30K mark, this gives customers for the first time a choice between owning an EV for 30K or an ICE counterpart for the same price. This makes the TCO (Total cost of ownership) more favourable for EV’s in the light commercial space, allowing most users to save hundreds of dollars each month in comparison to the average consumer’s fuel expenditure.

The concerted push to live off sustainable energy solutions has however raised certain areas of concern in the SA market. This includes higher energy tariffs for EV charging, especially in the public space. Additionally, SA is leading the front for VPP applications which allow users to use their vehicle’s battery as a bidirectional charger and feed energy back into the grid during peak times to help generate electricity for the customer. Whilst an attractive proposition, this presents the question around load management capabilities of the current grid infrastructure as the uptake of EV’s and charging infrastructure are expected to rapidly grow further in the coming years.