According to Money Guide Ireland, at the start of 2019, there were almost 5000 electric vehicles on the road. And another 4000 were registered at the end of the same year, totalling almost 9000 electric vehicles across Ireland at the end of 2019.
Now, this may not seem as much, but the people and governments across the world are realizing the importance and benefits of using electric vehicles. Reduced carbon emission, smaller vehicle tax, and cheaper fuel are all great incentives.
Throw in a couple of grants for buying an EV in Ireland, and grants for installing home chargers, and you got yourself good reasons for your next vehicle to be an electric one. However, the system is still growing, there will be issues we still have to discover and some that are already obvious, like the accessibility of electric charging points.
Electric Charging Points in Residential Buildings.
Even with 30 000 Evs in Ireland in 2021, we are still talking about a small percentage when compared to the overall amount of vehicles on the road. Because of this, EV owners can get away with a home charger or even one or two chargers in a parking lot for an apartment complex.
But what happens when we start looking at 300 000 electric vehicles, or a million? The Irish government has a plan to have 1 million EVs by 2030. The question isn’t if that will happen, but when will it happen. Ireland will certainly have more than 1 million electric vehicles on the road, it is just a matter of time.
So, how do you provide enough electric charging points once you have a few hundred electric vehicles belonging to one apartment complex? The answer is ‒— with difficulty.
Every house or building, residential or commercial, has a limited power supply. The power supply is calculated during development and a small margin is added. Suddenly, 20 or 30 years after development, you want to add hundreds if not thousands of kilowatts of power. It would be an enormous undertaking.
Plan Electric Charging Points in Advance
The best thing to do is to start planning early. For example, you could implement a separated power supply managed by the landlord or a different company. The supply would connect a network of cables spread through the parking lot.
However, not every lot needs an electric charging point. With the network, you are creating the foundations and you can easily add chargers later as the EV ownership percentage increases.
The idea on its own is quite simple. Electric vehicles are the future, and planning for the future is a must in residential construction. If you agree with us and you need help implementing such a system or you have questions about this topic, you can give us a call at 01-9029800 or contact us here.
