Sydney, Australia’s largest city, is leading the way in a new electrification strategy aimed at reducing emissions caused by traffic. The strategy includes doubling the number of charging stations in city parking lots and retrofitting existing apartment buildings with chargers. The city also plans to promote public fast chargers in parking lots and service stations, test on-street chargers on utility poles in residential neighborhoods with Ausgrid, update charging infrastructure regulations for new buildings, and accelerate the conversion of its own fleets to electric vehicles.
Currently, traffic is responsible for about 20% of emissions in the city, which is home to five million people. To address this issue, Sydney plans to install 18 new charging stations at Goulburn Street and Kings Cross, with another two 22-kWh chargers to be installed at the Cope Street parking lot in Redfern and the Wilson Street parking lot in Newtown. These charging stations will complement the 100 or so public charging points currently available in the city.
See also: New South Wales gears up start decarbonising the bus fleet
The city also aims to “test an unobtrusive on-street electric vehicle charger on an existing power pole” in collaboration with Ausgrid. This is an exciting development, especially since over 75% of people in the city live in apartments, where strata charging presents a significant opportunity to meet the city’s charging needs.
The Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, has pledged to support the state and federal government in encouraging a faster uptake of electric vehicles in the private and commercial sectors. This includes the introduction of federal fuel efficiency standards, accelerating the roll-out of zero-emission buses, and pricing mechanisms that favor electric vehicles over internal combustion engines.
In 2019, the Australian state of New South Wales government committed to electrifying Sydney’s bus fleet of around 8,000 vehicles in the coming years. This move, combined with Sydney’s new electrification strategy, will help reduce emissions caused by transportation and improve air quality in the city.
