More than a year after striking a deal with power provider Ausgrid to roll out 500 free electric vehicle (EV) charging kiosks, Sydney-based EV charging company JOLT has partnered up with Endeavour Energy to install a further 1,000 stations across Western Sydney over the next decade.
The new partnership will see more than 230 free EV charging stations installed on existing Endeavour Energy streetside substations by 2025, with the first charging stations to be in operation by the end of this year.
JOLT’s charging network will provide EV drivers with 7kWh of free charging per day, providing roughly 40 to 50 km of range and a 15-minute charging time, depending on the type of vehicle.
JOLT CEO Doug McNamee said he was excited to be expanding JOLT’s network and helping solve key barriers to EV adoption such as access to charging, and cost and range anxiety.
"We're thrilled to be expanding our footprint to the wider Sydney area and provide free, fast charging to more EV drivers through our partnership with Endeavour Energy,” McNamee said.
“The JOLT network has already given out over 162,000 free kilometres to EV drivers - that’s four trips around the surface of the earth.
“Our communities want greater accessibility and more EV chargers to be able to charge on the go. We’re delighted to begin stage one of our plans with Endeavour Energy to help electrify the future of transportation.”
Founded in 1980, Endeavour Energy supplies electricity to more than 2.6 million people working in Sydney’s Greater West, the Blue Mountains, the Southern Highlands, Illawarra, and the South Coast of NSW. The energy retailer maintains 430,000 power roles and streetlight columns, 202 major substations and 32,600 distribution substations.
The company forecasts that one in four of its customers will be driving an EV within the next 10 years and that by 2040 approximately 1.3 million EVs will be in its network, which covers Sydney’s greater west, Blue Mountains, Southern Highlands, the Illawarra, and NSW South Coast.
“In a world where we are ‘electrifying everything’, our customers are depending on us to support their daily life – for commuting, working remotely, for education and entertainment,” Endeavour Energy chief customer and strategy officer Leanne Pickering said.
“The partnership with JOLT harnesses the exciting momentum around EVs as people see the benefits of contribution to the environment through reducing carbon emissions and cleaner air.
“We are building a modern grid that can support the sustainability aspirations of every customer on our network – from large scale commercial solar farms to resident battery storage and an EV charging network.”
In September 2021, JOLT opened its first free EV charging station with Ausgrid in Mona Vale, which is a residential suburb in Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
During the announcement, McNamee noted that EV ownership almost doubled over the last 12 months to 23,000 new registrations. The company’s second charging station was unveiled two weeks later in the inner-west Sydney suburb of Strathfield.
The company is also active in Adelaide, where it launched a $1.1 million trial four months ago to trial EV charging and examine its impact on the electricity grid. The project is co-funded by JOLT and the Department of Energy and Mining.
JOLT’s chargers are powered by 100 per cent green energy.
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