As part of a comprehensive action plan to accelerate the adoption of next-generation cars, new Sydney apartment buildings will be required to be “electric vehicle-ready,” The city council will explore ways to retrofit older buildings with chargers.
Under the strategy, Sydney City Council also pledged to increase the number of electric vehicle chargers in its car parks, as well as investigate off-street charging and collaborate with taxi and ride-share businesses to invest in more electric vehicles.
Transport experts praised the proposals, saying that assistance for apartment dwellers was long overdue, but warned that action would be required quickly.
Electrification of Transport approved
The Sydney City Council unanimously approved the Electrification of Transport in the City plan late Monday, demonstrating Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
If we are to stop dangerous, runaway climate change, we need to reach net-zero emissions as soon as possible,
Lowering transport emissions, which are currently around 20 percent of all our emissions, will be crucial to this task
Lord Mayor Clover Moore stated on reducing greenhouse gas emissions
The plan calls for the local council to invest in more off-street chargers, such as those constructed on poles by Ausgrid, to increase the number of charging points for electric vehicles in its parking lots, and to advocate for a “stringent” national fuel efficiency standard.
In addition, the council will implement planning controls mandating new developments to set up electric vehicle charging infrastructure, fund feasibility studies to retrofit older apartment buildings with chargers and conduct a study to determine the best ways to upgrade many older building types.
Ms. Moore stated that developing methods to charge electric vehicles in apartment buildings was critical to the technology’s future because more than 75% of Sydney residents lived in multi-unit dwellings.
Many of these apartments have off-street parking spaces, and we know that most of them will look to charge their electric vehicles in those spaces,
But owners corporations need to juggle complex metering, demand management and efficiency, safety standards, and insurance and, of course, questions over who pays and how
Lord Mayor Clover Moore stated on bulding charging stations
New apartments must be EV ready
As of May, all new apartment buildings in Australia must be electric vehicle-ready, thanks to changes to the National Construction Code.
Hussein Dia, a future urban mobility professor at Swinburne University, praised the Sydney council’s proposals and suggested that more local governments make modifications to help Australia’s growing number of EV drivers.
We’ve talked about people living in apartments having very difficult times and doing silly things like extending cords in tricky places,
The councils are not going to be able to control some aspects of electric vehicle policy, like pricing, but planning is under their control
Hussein Dia, Professor of future urban mobility at Swinburn University stated on the electrification
“The councils are not going to be able to control some aspects of electric vehicle policy, like pricing, but planning is under their control.”
Prof Dia added councils should roll out their chargers and reforms “quickly” to help swift adoption of the technology.
