Consumer behaviour studies and analysis of energy usage data highlight that most EV owners in Australia today charge at home with solar or during off-peak times, leading to minimal impact on the grid, and in many cases supporting the grid to use excess solar during the day, and spare network capacity at night.   Read more about charging behaviours here.

Energy retailers are increasingly offering retail time-of-use products specifically aimed at rewarding EV drivers with very low prices for choosing to charge in the middle of the day or the middle of the night – at time of writing, AGL, Origin, and Simply Energy have some excellent offers of this type, available in most of the country.

To learn more on energy policy as it relates to EVs, and the state of public charging infrastructure, see our latest ‘State of EVs’ report.

The post How are governments and energy providers preparing to support the energy demand from electric vehicles? first appeared on Electric Vehicle Council.

A typical passenger EV, driven 12,000km per year, will consume about 2,000kWh of electricity per year.  By comparison, a typical mainland Australian home consumes about 4,000-8,000kWh of electricity per year (depending on whether they use gas for cooking/heating or not).

Timing of *when* the electricity is consumed to charge the EV has environmental, grid security, and cost implications for the energy system and the consumer – read more about this in our guide to home EV charging.

The post How much electricity does charging an electric vehicle consume compared to typical household usage? first appeared on Electric Vehicle Council.

One potential challenge for the grid from EVs is the time of charging. While current EV owners are generally either charging during the day using solar, or overnight to take advantage of cheap, off-peak electricity rates, further efforts will be required to ensure this behaviour continues as the number of EVs grows in Australia. This will help to prevent EVs putting extra stress on the electricity during peak demand periods.

Like all cars, EVs are generally parked more than 90% of the time, and so as long as drivers have access to charging where these vehicles are parked, there is significant flexibility in shifting the time of when charging occurs to minimise any negative grid impacts, while maximising the benefit for the driver through lower energy costs.

To read more about EVs and the Australia electricity grid, check out one of our recent reports on this topic here.

The post Can the current energy grid handle the increasing number of electric vehicles on the road? first appeared on Electric Vehicle Council.