Charging Infrastructure for Electric Vehicles
Volume: 1 Issue 7 |  Friday, 25 June 2010 |   |  0 comment

By 2015 there will be an estimated 3 million plug-in cars worldwide with over 20 production models available by late 2012. In order for this to be a reality the development of charging infrastructure is needed.

One man realised the necessity of infrastructure development and so started the Mauritius based company Supercharge Ltd. Dr Revin Panray Beeharry is the chairman and CEO of the company he started with the aim of making Mauritius an Electric Vehicle (EV) friendly country. Supercharge Ltd will own and operate a networked EV charging infrastructure covering the whole of Mauritius.

Dr Beeharry is a chemical engineer by training with his PhD from the University of Mauritius. After 13 years in academia he founded the Sustainable Resource Management Ltd, an environmental consulting practice. Dr Beeharry has extensive knowledge on the conduct of Energy Audits, Energy Cost Cutting and the implementation of Energy Management Programs and has published over 25 articles on various aspects of energy use, policy planning and energy resource optimisation.

Dr Beeharry saw the need for the implementation of re-charging infrastructure to allay the fears of EV drivers about the range of their vehicles. As the average daily commute of Mauritian motorist is about 80km the country lends itself to the early adoption of EVs. The average EV can travel 160km before needing to recharge and so the EV owners could recharge their vehicle overnight, 90% of Mauritians park their cars in garages overnight so this is a viable option.

However, Dr Beeharry realised that a wider scope of re-charging is needed and so a networked charging infrastructure will be implemented across Mauritius. These charging bays will consist of charging bays, in parking lots and on the streets, fast charging stations and battery swapping stations. The fast charging stations will offer 32kW of charging power. The networked charging stations will allow for seamless billing that includes parking rental and makes use of GSM technology.

The fast charging stations will be located across the country within a 10km radius of one another. This will allow EV drivers to travel across Mauritius without having to worry about being stranded without power.  By the end of this year 10 major auto manufacturers will have produced EVs and this will be a huge step towards a mode of transport that emits no pollutants if these vehicles are charged using sustainably produced electricity.

Dr Beeharry is in the process of implementing this infrastructural system of charging points in Mauritius. He highlights the problem areas in the implementation of the EV system as being range anxiety and the resistance to the early adoption of EVs, the electricity tariffs, the reliance on the Central Electricity Board infrastructure to support night charging, the funding of the infrastructure and managing the growth of the movement.

Dr Beeharry will be in South Africa on the 29th-30th April to speak at the Sustainable Transport and Mobility Conference at Gallagher Estate. He will be discussing his work in Mauritius and using it as a case study to discuss the implications of embarking on a similar e-corridor for South Africa.