50 new high speed chargers!

pwurple

20 million investment announced, with 50 new high speed chargers, and upgrading some of the slow ones to high speed.


https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/news-and-media/press-releases/Pages/Minister-Bruton-Announces-Nationwide-High-Power-Charging-Network-for-Electric-Cars.aspx

shanec1928

As a matter of interest are any of the ministerial cars or government bought vehicles hybrid or electric?

ednwireland

why are the goverment paying for this . public charge points shouldnt he free either

pdpmur

ednwireland wrote: »

why are the goverment paying for this . public charge points shouldnt he free either

Why? In short, to incentivise the purchase of ev's. There's an obvious lack of charging facilities at present.

"High" speed charging will be paid for at the point of consumption as of later this year, according to the same announcement

daheff

ednwireland wrote: »

why are the goverment paying for this .

where its in the long term public interest they should. By your logic the govt shouldnt have put in electricity or water services......


Point is that overall its beneficial to the country... but not until theres critical mass will it be viable for private enterprise... putting in infrastructure helps get that critical mass

ted1

ednwireland wrote: »

why are the goverment paying for this . public charge points shouldnt he free either

Until there is a significant uptake in EV’s it is not attractive enough fir private companies to provide them.

Therefore to encourage take up the government must provide them.

It’ll save the country paying carbon charges. It’ll also keep money for leaving the state , fossil fuel is imported so every time someone fills up an ICE money is leaving the state. With renewables energy, the money is kept in the state.

uphillonly

ted1 wrote: »

It’ll also keep money for leaving the state , fossil fuel is imported so every time someone fills up an ICE money is leaving the state. With renewables energy, the money is kept in the state.

I haven't seen analysis of this but you'd think this would be a significant benefit to us and flagged more often by politicians. Especially as our energy production mix continues to become more renewable based.

Personally, we do almost all our charging at night so our energy provider claims it's mainly wind power.

ted1

uphillonly wrote: »

I haven't seen analysis of this but you'd think this would be a significant benefit to us and flagged more often by politicians. Especially as our energy production mix continues to become more renewable based.

Personally, we do almost all our charging at night so our energy provider claims it's mainly wind power.

If you look up “Energy Independence “ you should see more benefits. Up to recently the only way we could do it was with burning peat!!

slave1

"ESB ecars is currently identifying the most appropriate locations on motorways and national road networks. The sites will be identified using the latest software mapping techniques, taking account of information on current charge point usage, traffic volume, accessibility, amenities and grid capacity at the sites"

Location, location, location......hope they get it right, Dublin - Galway, Galway - Sligo, Galway - Limerick, Limerick - Cork, Cork - Waterford, Cork - Dublin, Dublin - Sligo, Dublin - Belfast etc etc etc

Padraig Mor

ednwireland wrote: »

why are the goverment paying for this . public charge points shouldnt he free either

Oh, so you pay for street lights yourself do you?

Gumbo

ednwireland wrote: »

why are the goverment paying for this . public charge points shouldnt he free either

The same reason why the government provide cycle lanes for you.
To promote cycling as a healthier mode of transport and to reduce CO2 emissions.

EV chargers will promote EV uptake, reduce CO2, and also reduces the countries Carbon Emissions.

BobbyBingo

Welcome news for sure but disappointing in that I think the ESB guy interviewed on Morning Ireland today said that it'd be carried out over a four year timeframe..

Any idea of where the 50 new chargers / upgrades will happen ?

B

KCross

uphillonly wrote: »

I haven't seen analysis of this but you'd think this would be a significant benefit to us and flagged more often by politicians. Especially as our energy production mix continues to become more renewable based.

Its a double edged sword though. We're not spending it on imported fossil fuels, which is good, but it also means the govt arent getting their volume of tax.

uphillonly wrote: »

Personally, we do almost all our charging at night so our energy provider claims it's mainly wind power.

That would be a bit of a white lie from them.
As an average, over the year, night time charging your EV is at about 35% renewable
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=109851033&postcount=257

ednwireland

Padraig Mor wrote: »

ednwireland wrote: »

why are the goverment paying for this . public charge points shouldnt he free either

Oh, so you pay for street lights yourself do you?

dont have street lights where i live but i do think money would be better spent on mass transit than encouraging cars even though i love my car. but if i go dublin i take the bus cheaper , sleep and no parking charges.
government doesn't fund petrol stations

September1

It will scare private investors away, it is not easy to compete with taxpayers money. They would be better spending this money to provide loans to garages and parking operators.

Mickeroo

Hope this isn't another national broadband plan.

KCross

September1 wrote: »

It will scare private investors away, it is not easy to compete with taxpayers money.

There is some truth to that but its a classic chicken and egg issue at the moment. Not enough cars to justify a network and people not switching because the network isnt there.

Waiting for the private investor to turn up isnt proving to work as its been several years since anything has been done and the network is creaking.

The state needed to step in... unfortunately.

Ionity will hopefully keep eCars honest in their pricing, so it's not a complete monopoly.

September1 wrote: »

They would be better spending this money to provide loans to garages and parking operators.

It needs to be joined up strategic thinking though. A general loan scheme to random garages around the country wont cut it.

slave1

KCross wrote: »

There is some truth to that but its a classic chicken and egg issue at the moment. Not enough cars to justify a network and people not switching because the network isnt there.

I agree to a point, we've already passed the chicken/egg on current infrastructure.
A few years back the infrastructure was there to attract the EVs and now the EVs are here the infrastructure is proved lacking - specifically not enough fast charger locations, not enough fast chargers at each location and not dependable so all leading to queues and some EV folk switching back to ICE.

We need Phase II to be exactly what we were chatting about on another thread, multiple fast chargers along commute and well used inter city/towns routes.

When this is in place and proved reliable then more EVs will follow.

If you look at consistent comments on this forum then the general view is an EV is an excellent second car but if you have to rely on current infrastructure then it's not for you.....

Gumbo

ednwireland wrote: »

dont have street lights where i live but i do think money would be better spent on mass transit than encouraging cars even though i love my car. but if i go dublin i take the bus cheaper , sleep and no parking charges.
government doesn't fund petrol stations

You could argue money be better spent improving the road conditions rather than creating new cycle lanes. Cyclists don't fund cycle lanes either.

irishgrover

slave1 wrote: »

….If you look at consistent comments on this forum then the general view is an EV is an excellent second car but if you have to rely on current infrastructure then it's not for you.....

I can't fully agree with this.... I have a 28kw Ioniq. I drive 55k km a year. I normally drive return from galway to Dublin / Meath at least once a week, sometimes more often. I pass 7 fast chargers between home and Dublin airport

• Galway Airport
• Ballinasloe
• Athlone
• Kilbeggin
• Enield
• Lucan
• Airport

5 fast chargers between home and meath (first five on above list)
I travel to Shannon daily (passing 2 fast chargers in Ennis and Shannon). I also regularly travel of North Co. Mayo and pass 3 fast chargers (Galway Airport, Ballindine, Castlebar)

Before I bough the car I did a lot of research, and used google history to look at where I drove on the previous 12 months. That analysis proved that my driving, although a lot, is really quite predictable, and that there are chargers on all my routes.

Obviously at any given time probably 20% of chargers are broken. However in over a year I have never waited more than 30 minutes for a charge, and I only have to wait at most 15% of the time.
I always do my planning based on the fact that the next charger I am targeting is broken. I always try to build in redundancy into my planning.
So does it take additional planning, yes. Does it take some level of occasional delay, yes. Does an EV suite you if you extensively drive in a random manner, on non primary routes with a car full of toddlers, no.

I plan for charging, if I'm going across the country I'll plan to build in redundancy/delays. I actually look forward to charging, I've sideloaded amazon prime / youtube, Video player etc into my head unit... charging time (or waiting for charging) is for me, relaxing "me time".

I think that the pain associated with fast charging will peak in the next quarter, as ownership explodes and no cost for charging encourages misuse.

However even now, EV is absolutely not limited to a 2nd car concept.... just do your homework and plan according before spending a shedload of money.

The map provided looks pretty impressive. Combine this with charging for charging to prevent needless usage and we are into a winner here. This sort of network will make it as easy or better to drive around the island of Ireland congestion wise as it used to be back in 2015 when there were much fewer cars around (most with a very modest range) and most of the drivers were still courteous and playing for the same team.

Mickeroo

Where you see the map?

slave1

Then that driving pattern suits you IrishGrover and you've made the right decision.
I've a L30 and my preferred routes are to Sligo/Enniscrone/Donegal and up North from Athlone.
After leaving home I have nothing, no fast charger until Sligo as Ballaghadereen is out of the way a bit, going up North I can go off route to Carrick but there you go, for my routes I have single fast charger dependency.
On one go to Enniskillen I charged via Longford which got me to Enniskillen only to find the ADSA charger was not working, neither was the one in the Erne Shopping Centre, so I thought I'd head North of Enniskillen to the Enniskillen fast charger only to find that not working, I then had to drive slowly and out of my way to Carrick fast charger and then got there to find it was also broken and had to use a slow charger for hours to get me enough charge to get to Longford fast charger and then home.
So that journey was 4/5 chargers out of action and where I should have been home by evening I didn't get home till next day.

We had the same on a Galway trip, Ballinasloe fast charger out of action and Galway one busted too.

So for me/us, an EV is a second car only as we would not take it on our usual long routes.

Mickeroo

Mickeroo wrote: »

Where you see the map?

Saw it at the journal this morning. Here you go:

Zenith74

Higher definition version of the map here if you want to zoom in and take a gander - https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/news-and-media/press-releases/Documents/919/Ireland's%20High%20Power%20Charging%20Network%20for%20Electric%20Vehicles.pdf

Mickeroo wrote: »

Hope this isn't another national broadband plan.

ESB are already running the existing network so this is just an iteration of that service, nothing 'new' like the broadband nonsense, so think we'll be fine...

slave1

New sites good but at 150 charging are already behind the game changer M3 at 250

150 kW Sounds good to me if your car can take it. Drive 300 km, topup for 20 minutes and do another 300 or so kilometers with the close to 50 kWh taken in. It's only realistic in the current tech if you have at least 75 kWh battery installed. 20 minute coffee breaks every 300 kilometers doesn't sound too bad.

slave1

Good point, with current battery sizes then charge speed vs capacity should be considered

Gile_na_gile

There is not much to criticise here. It looks quite good and glad to see this is our public network taking the lead. Would like to see the data on charger usage if they make it available, but perhaps it could be pulled and averaged from the ecars API. Again, anecdotally, my few long drives tally with irishgrover above. Typically, the 50KW charger is working and available when I arrive off M7/M8 outside of peak hours and away from Greater Dublin Area.

unkel

This will be on the RTE news this evening



Had a chat with the spokeswoman for the ESB, lovely lady, her company car is the Ioniq

She said that the rollout of these is hopefully from September, has to be tendered etc.

I think it might have been George Lee doing the interview. This was in Newlands Cross at 1PM today. I forgot to charge overnight, car was near empty and have to do a few longish runs today, so needed to fast charge

Kramer

Gile_na_gile wrote: »

There is not much to criticise here. It looks quite good and glad to see this is our public network taking the lead.

Yes, it looks good. It'll probably still be looking good this time next year though, with little progress.
Just look at all the progress that was made from 2015 to 2018. How many new chargers were installed again?
Zero?
Really!

We won't need any more chargers soon anyway, as soon as they introduce charging for charging, the present network will free up overnight .

Kramer

unkel wrote: »

spokeswoman for the ESB, lovely lady, her company car is the Ioniq

She must have gotten up her bosses nose to have been shafted with the Ioniq - hope you sympathised with her .

unkel

unkel wrote: »

I forgot to charge overnight, car was near empty and have to do a few longish runs today, so needed to fast charge

Yea yea, fecking local freeloaders. Oh yea, have to fire up the RTE news tonight so.

Gumbo

Glad the charger is back working. It’s been down a lot lately based on FB posts.

irishgrover

slave1 wrote: »

....
So for me/us, an EV is a second car only as we would not take it on our usual long routes.

I agree with you. For some people is is perfect as a primary car, for others it does not work as a primary car.
My point was everyone is different, and one should really do their homework before buyinh

Patser

Heard them talking about this on Newstalk earlier, all great and positive, but why is it taking 4 years to install 50 fast charge points? In 4 years God knows what technological level EVs will be at, or demand. So a big publicity push today, for something that wont start til September and then will take years more to deliver makes little sense. 20 million investment sounds good, but 5 million a year less so.

Patser

Patser wrote: »

Heard them talking about this on Newstalk earlier, all great and positive, but why is it taking 4 years to install 50 fast charge points? In 4 years God knows what technological level EVs will be at, or demand. So a big publicity push today, for something that wont start til September and then will take years more to deliver makes little sense. 20 million investment sounds good, but 5 million a year less so.

It's way more than 50 individual chargers. Plenty of cabling to run and transformers to upgrade to support up to 8x150 kW chargers per site, I suspect.

Kramer

Great piece on RTE news, so inspiring....

4 years to "roll out", starting from next September, so errr......should be completed, delays aside, by early 2024 :rolleyes:.

Probably coincide with an announcement on the national broadband plan.

Happy days .

daheff

September1 wrote: »

It will scare private investors away, it is not easy to compete with taxpayers money. They would be better spending this money to provide loans to garages and parking operators.

It wont. what will happen is the network will be built and later sold to private investors.

gizmo555

shanec1928 wrote: »

As a matter of interest are any of the ministerial cars or government bought vehicles hybrid or electric?

It amuses me that the approved mileage rates for civil servants are still entirely based on engine capacity and include no reference to EVs:

https://www.revenue.ie/en/employing-people/employee-expenses/travel-and-subsistence/civil-service-rates.aspx

Gumbo

gizmo555 wrote: »

It amuses me that the approved mileage rates for civil servants are still entirely based on engine capacity and include no reference to EVs:

https://www.revenue.ie/en/employing-people/employee-expenses/travel-and-subsistence/civil-service-rates.aspx

Might not be online but all government bodies received official circulars about it a few years back. EV rates are at the lowest rate per km so
You get the same as a 1.2 cc ICE.

ted1

September1 wrote: »

It will scare private investors away, it is not easy to compete with taxpayers money. They would be better spending this money to provide loans to garages and parking operators.

They won’t compete. Private investors will justvolsve there’s outside a 20lm Radiuscabd if they take off the regulator will probably apply a minimum charge for ESB so they are dearer

ted1

gizmo555 wrote: »

It amuses me that the approved mileage rates for civil servants are still entirely based on engine capacity and include no reference to EVs:

https://www.revenue.ie/en/employing-people/employee-expenses/travel-and-subsistence/civil-service-rates.aspx

Yep none of our guys will go below 1.6 litres

My round trip to the airport is worth about 70 euro for driving a car or 7 euro for cycling.

creedp

irishgrover wrote: »

However even now, EV is absolutely not limited to a 2nd car concept.... just do your homework and plan according before spending a shedload of money.

Again it works for you so an EV is great. I go home regularly for a weekend - down Saturday am and back Sunday evening - 350 km each way. Twice I went in L30 when travelling on my own and it took me over six hours each way - one leg took 7 hours. That's simply 2 long whem Im only going home for an overnight especially when I can do the same journey non stop in an ICE in approx 3.75 hrs. However most of the time I travel with family 4 kids and wife so the L30 is no use.

So horses for courses. When they suit that are great but for many EVs simply do not cut the mustard yet, particularly for single car families.

JPA

Zenith74 wrote: »

Higher definition version of the map here if you want to zoom in and take a gander - https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/news-and-media/press-releases/Documents/919/Ireland's%20High%20Power%20Charging%20Network%20for%20Electric%20Vehicles.pdf



ESB are already running the existing network so this is just an iteration of that service, nothing 'new' like the broadband nonsense, so think we'll be fine...

Is there any actual list of locations or is the map more of a general area for where the chargers will be?

cc

kceire wrote: »

You could argue money be better spent improving the road conditions rather than creating new cycle lanes. Cyclists don't fund cycle lanes either.

Of course they fund cycle lanes, they pay the same income tax as anyone. Cyclists who dont own a car are funding the same infrastructre as any other citizen.

KCross

JPA wrote: »

Is there any actual list of locations or is the map more of a general area for where the chargers will be?

The map says its "indicative" only. So, its just general area but Im sure they know exactly where they plan to put them.

the culture of deference

The money would be better spent putting PV on peoples houses.

If every house generated enough to do 100km's per day in an EV as well as powering the house then there is no long term issue with any growth in car sales.

Foe me the idea of wasting another 1,000 litres of diesel per year per car are gone.

Gumbo

cc wrote: »

Of course they fund cycle lanes, they pay the same income tax as anyone. Cyclists who dont own a car are funding the same infrastructre as any other citizen.

Exactly my point.
The poster was moaning about government funding for a project. Forgetting that government fu ding provided every cycle route in the county also. Hypocrite.

Shefwedfan

I drive an electric car. Personally I don't think the government should be paying for these chargers. If they want to help with rollout then give eCars a loan or something and let them pay back the loan from paid charging......

The money would be better spent sticking 20 million worth of PV onto houses around Ireland....even if they offered XXX amount of people 2kWh free and they pay to up from that....something like that would have longer term benefits to the country and the people that are paying taxes.....

Gumbo

Shefwedfan wrote: »

I drive an electric car. Personally I don't think the government should be paying for these chargers. If they want to help with rollout then give eCars a loan or something and let them pay back the loan from paid charging......

The money would be better spent sticking 20 million worth of PV onto houses around Ireland....even if they offered XXX amount of people 2kWh free and they pay to up from that....something like that would have longer term benefits to the country and the people that are paying taxes.....

If they offered a modest FIT then people would get PV themselves. It would make the payback worthwhile rather than just been an eco thing now.

Between the PV grant and a small FIT then I think people will be jumping at them.