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Mauritius to start roll-out of electric vehicle infrastructure this year
5th May 2010
The island state of Mauritius will open its first demonstration charging station for electric vehicles this year.
“This first electric vehicle on the road will most likely be a Nissan Leaf,” says Supercharge chairperson and CEO Dr Revin Panray Beeharry.
Supercharge is a private company which plans to roll out and operate the infrastructure to support electric vehicles in Mauritius. Government is not a direct partner in the project.
Beeharry has a P.hD in environmental engineering.
Beeharry explains that Mauritius is ideal for electric vehicles as people on the island drive an average of 80 km a day, with the range of electric vehicles before they require recharging currently from around 60 km to 160 km.
Recharging happens at a standard home-type wall socket.
Also, Mauritius is only 2 000 km2 in size, with 1,2-million people and 110 000 cars, which means it will require a relatively small network of charge stations to cover the popular holiday destination.
“The electric vehicle is going to happen,” assures Beeharry. “It will revolutionise the car industry just like the move from film to digital camera did.”
He believes there will be three-million electric vehicles in use in the world by 2015.
“By 2012 there will be 20 different models of electric vehicles available.”
Beeharry says as 90% of cars in Mauritius are parked in garages, he anticipates that most electric vehicle recharging will happen at home.
However, he also stresses the need to make charging bays available on streets and in parking lots, with battery swapping stations to be added at a later stage.
A charging bay – such as can be seen in the UK and US already – offers drivers the opportunity to park and plug in their cars at charge point, looking somewhat like parking meters.
The plug is unlocked with a key issued to the consumer, and locks again once plugged in. Payment is by card.
It is also envisaged for electric car drivers to eventually exchange their depleted batteries with fully-charged units at automated swapping stations, in less time than it takes to fill up with fuel.
Beeharry says Supercharge anticipates that a three kilowatt full home charge will take eight hours, but a 32 kW full charge at specialised stations will take less than half an hour.
“We think 20 fast-charging stations in Mauritius will be enough. As the number of users then increase, we will roll out more.”
PAYMENT USING CELL-PHONE TECHNOLOGY
Beeharry says the idea is for payment to be seamless.
“You must be able to do it with one card – to swipe it and pay the bill at the end of the month.”
Beeharry says this will be the case for using electricity to charge a car at home, as well as when using a charging station or street-side charger.
Payment will be through GSM technology, or” global system for mobile communications”.
“You will have a SIM-card, and you will be billed once a month.”
Beeharry does not anticipate charging stations to be linked to service stations, but rather to shopping centres.
He notes that one of the biggest challenges in rolling out electric vehicles and the infrastructure for these vehicles is coping with so-called range-anxiety, where people fear “they will run out of juice”.
“So, you need a good network.”
Supercharge has already issued a request for proposals for the roll-out of charging stations.
The commercialisation of the full system network is to start next year.
NOT ZERO EMISSION
Contrary to popular belief electric vehicles are not zero-emission vehicles, says Beeharry.
Even though they do not emit exhaust emissions, they shift the emissions to the point where electricity is produced – unless, of course, renewable energy is used.
Beeharry says the carbon dioxide emissions per kilometre for an electric vehicle will be 143 g/km in Mauritius, with petrol vehicles adding up to 155 g/km.
He also did some other interesting calculations.
Using the Nissan Leaf electric vehicle as an example, he says the running cost per kilometre will come to 25 South African cents.
Compared with this, running a petrol car rounds off to 70 c/km.
“Electric cars offer a 100% direct cost advantage,” says Beeharry.
He believes this cost differential offers the opportunity to charge more for the electricity that will be used to run electric vehicles.
“We are lobbying government on a number of issues, including tariffs.”
Beeharry says a higher tariff for electric car users may stimulate the increased roll-out of renewable energy, which is more expensive than coal-based electricity.
Mauritius is planning a 60 MW wind-farm, for example [not linked to the electric vehicle project].
Beeharry says vehicle sellers are ready to import electric vehicles, but notes that the Mauritian electricity utility is pushing against the programme.
“They see it as a headache.”
Electric cars are also much more expensive than petrol or diesel cars, with the lithium-ion battery a costly component. This is driving a school of thought that some vehicle manufacturers should sell the car, but lease the battery, thereby cutting vehicle costs.
Supercharge’s own cost conundrum is finding the funding to roll out the charging infrastructure.
“I am applying to government for a grant, we are bringing in investors and some of the funding will come from loans,” says Beeharry.
He estimates the infrastructure roll-out to cost in the region of R12-million.
Mauritius sells around 5 000 new cars a year, and Beeharry expects 30% of this number to be electric vehicles by 2020.
Jobs to come first as SA mulls its low-carbon options - government
6th May 2010
There were some congruencies, but also some obvious tensions in attempting to transition South Africa to a "low-carbon, high-growth" path, the acting head of The Presidency's National Planning Commission secretariat, Kuben Naidoo, cautioned Thursday.
Speaking at a seminar in Johannesburg, entitled ‘Towards Low Carbon Growth in South Africa', Naidoo also stressed that increasing the labour absorption capacity of the economy remained South Africa's chief priority and would, thus, trump all other imperatives, including the desire to lower the overall carbon intensity of the economy.
Naidoo's comments came in a week when South Africa's official unemployment for the first quarter of 2010 rose to above the 25% level, or 4,31-million people. He, thus, argued that labour absorption was the "biggest sustainability issue" facing policymakers.
Naidoo was supported by the Development Bank of Southern Africa economist Dr Neva Makgetla, who warned that the transition costs associated with such an agenda were often not highlighted by advocates of the so-called green industries.
"It is neither easy, nor cheap to make the move," Makgetla cautioned.
However, both Naidoo and Makgetla agreed that it would be inappropriate and risky for South Africa to adopt a "business as usual" stance with regard to the carbon intensity of its economy, as well as its exports. Some two-thirds of South Africa's exports could be considered carbon heavy, owing to the fact that these arose primarily from within the resources milieu.
"But, we need to find congruencies between the low-carbon growth aspiration and our high-employment ambitions," Naidoo stressed, arguing that government was convinced that there were indeed some immediate synergies that should be grasped.
He was convinced, for instance, that higher energy prices, together with the prospect of carbon dioxide penalties, would bring a number of opportunities to the fore, particularly in the areas of public transport and improving South Africa's spatial development characteristics.
There was also an opportunity to absorb employees in industries and companies dedicated to building and operating renewable energy facilities, as well as in energy services companies that could improve the energy efficiency of buildings, homes, factories and mines.
"But we need better research on these congruencies," Naidoo said, particularly as any move towards a low-carbon growth path could be in direct conflict with government's growth aspirations in resources, agriculture and tourism.
SA'S COMPETITIVENESS AT STAKE
However, the sustainable development head at Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (Tips), Peet du Plooy, warned that South Africa's very competitiveness as an economy was at stake, as the market access for its goods and services could, in future, be constrained by the carbon-intensive nature of production processes.
He argued that the transition to a lower-carbon economy could well be key to both protecting jobs, as well as to creating new ones. So-called green industries, Du Plooy noted, had been experiencing "double-digit" growth rates since 2004, with a recent report out of the UK arguing that the sector already had yearly revenues of $5-trillion.
Strategies should, thus, be adopted to ensure that South Africa captured its "fair share" of that new and growing market, which could represent 7% of gross domestic product at some point in the future - similar to the current contribution of tourism.
It emerged that Tips, together with climate consultancy Camco and the British High Commission, was currently researching the risks and opportunities posed by climate change to South Africa's economy, with the initial results indicating significant upside potential.
Camco senior consultant Alex McNamara reported that the concept of "climate competitiveness" was gaining traction and was already driving innovation in certain business sectors, such as South Africa's food and wine industry.
The study had also indicated that the risks associated with inaction were "quite pronounced". "Therefore, a proactive response is required," McNamara argued.
There was already positive alignment between South Africa's second industrial policy action plan and the country's climate change policies. But McNamara said that it was now key to deepen the linkages and clear the regulatory constraints to the development of green industries.
However, he also acknowledged that there would need to be trade-offs between competing societal demands and admitted that there were also some serious skills constraints to accelerating the transition to a low-carbon growth path.
Design software for SA’s first electric car
26th March 2010
Local product life-style man- agment (PLM) specialist CNC Design Consultants (CDC) has teamed up with vehicle producer Optimal Energy in the design of the first South African electrical car, the Joule.The plug-in electric vehicle was conceived by Optimal Energy and has been refined by automotive and design company Zagato’s Total Design Centre. “CDC is working closely with Optimal Energy to ensure a quality design,” says CDC MD Igal Filipovski. The car will reportedly go into production in 2013 and is on display this month at the Geneva Motor Show, in Switzerland.
He says that Optimal Energy is one of a number of companies worldwide which have implemented three-dimensional (3-D) and PLM specialist Dassault Systèmes’ (DS’s) latest product, Enovia V6 PLM. CDC also pro- vided the company with its computer-aided 3-D interactive application (CATIA) implementation, and is confident that, in conjunction with Enovia, DS’s integrated PLM solution will ensure that a world-class vehicle, with zero defects, is produced.
Fledgeling local electric vehicle sector receives government boost 22nd February 2010
22nd February 2010
The commercialisation of “South Africa's electric vehicle” (EV) has been announced as a key action programme in the Department of Trade and Industry's (dti's) Industrial Policy Action Plan 2 (IPAP2), unveiled last week.
Cape Town based Optimal Energy has developed South Africa's first EV in the form of the Joule, and plans to start local production of the vehicle in 2013, in Port Elizabeth, for the South African and export markets.
IPAP2 states that the nature of government's intervention to ensure EV commercialisation will be the provision of appropriate support to encourage the local manufacture of EVs and their related components, the installation of infrastructure for such EVs, the creation of testing facilities, demand stimulation mechanisms, and public education on the use and benefits of alternative energy source vehicles.
EVs require plug-in points at strategic points, such as shopping centres or filling stations, for example, to recharge their batteries as they have a range of around 150 km or, in the case of the Joule, 300 km, according to Optimal Energy.
The dti notes in IPAP2 that the economic rationale behind the decision to support a local EV industry is the “direct and indirect spill-over effects of developing a local EV, coupled with the creation of the broader regulatory environment for such vehicles”.
As key milestones, the dti targets the approval of an investment support measure for the manufacture of EVs and components by the end of this year, coupled with government reaching a position on issues such as purchasing, demand stimulation, infrastructure for charging, testing facilities and public education. Public education on EVs is set to start in the second half of 2011, with an EV testing facility to be developed towards the end of 2011.
* Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced in his maiden budget speech last week that new passenger vehicles will be taxed based on their certified carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions at R75 per g/km for each g/km above 120 g/km, as from September this year.
The new tax regime favours the use of more fuel-efficient vehicles (often this equates to vehicles with smaller engines) that emit less CO2.
EVs produce no direct emissions.
- All content courtesy of Engineeringnews.co.za
Comments: As in other segments of the globe, Africans are not laying low in the examination and discussion of the growing prospects of "alternative green" energy efficient economy. The drive towards the implementation of "green" and efficient energy has noticeably gained traction as of late, primarily because of recession and promising projections of "growth", in particular, the associated money it will put into the pockets of the business community rather than any principled objective to safeguard the environment from further degradation. To the extent that governments have thus far jumped in to stimulate "green" energy concerns through "incentives", it is with this view towards the "lucrative" future that green energy holds, which is looking to be increasingly attractive. If the will is there, the benefits of an all-energy efficient "green" economic apparatus can only outweigh the disadvantages -- e.g. certainly environmental catastrophes like the current one perpetrated by BP and co. in the Gulf of Mexico would not be an issue, but as these snippets show one way or the other, this will is obstructed only by fears of altering current breeding grounds for profit regimes that line the pockets of business folk with little fettered monetary-gain surpluses that they would not like to see be done away with; in other words, "conflicting" with their "competitiveness" in amassing private profit.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Posted here before, below we have the Chinese already building a market for their electric vehicles on the continent, in this case through the incentive of export of production...
1st Egyptian-made BYD model rolls off production line
14 Dec 2009
After four years of cooperation with a local automaker, China's carmaker launched its first Egyptian-made plug-in hybrid F3 on December 13.
Li Zhuhang, general manager of the export trade division with BYD said the launch of the F3 model signals the company foray into the Egyptian auto market and it is a springboard to expand its market into East Asia and Africa.
Chinese Ambassador to Egypt Wu Chunhua said BYD's advantage of producing vehicles and auto parts can help the company expand in the Egyptian market and its neighboring countries.
The Chinese battery and electric car manufacturer plans to set up 40 overseas plants by 2025, according to its overseas strategy.
...an incentive which translates into the Egyptian context, as an opportunity to add needed "employment" while facilitating product-industrialization skills transfer in this burgeoning "green" niche market. This doesn't mean though, Egyptians don't have ambitions of their own; the following serve as examples of Egyptian studies into solar-driven transportation...
A team of Egyptian scientists at the University of South Valley introduced a model for environmentally friendly car powered by solar and without fuel." - Tanslation of a contactcars.com piece.
Below are images of a "all-solar -- no other fuel" study car by a Egyptian research teams of the University of South Valley:
Image 1: Image caption - Augustine Mabasa's homemade car is powered by a generator and has a top speed of 30km/h
Limpopo's own Henry Ford, Augustine Mabasa, has been given a chance to become a qualified motor mechanic.
The 29-year old from Siyandani village outside Giyani has been making his own cars from scrap metals since he was at school. Now he has been offered a two-year learnership by Nissan SA and is receiving intensive training at BD Motors in Tzaneen.
"When I started collecting scrap metals to make my first car, people laughed at me, saying that I had lost my mind,” Mabasa said. Mabasa was in Grade 11 when he made an electric car, which won first prize in the Eskom Expo for Young Scientists.
It was later bought by a businessman for R10,000.
Augma - his generator powered car.
His second car, called the Augma, runs on a 10l petrol tank, is powered by a generator and has a top speed of 30km/h. It boasts a clutch, brake and accelerator pedals, four shock absorbers, an exhaust system, a hooter as well as four gears, including reverse.
Mabasa can even drive the vehicle at night because it has an effective lighting system, which is connected to an ordinary car battery. He believes that one day he will get a roadworthy certificate to use his car on public roads.
"It took me more than two years to make this car, but it is not yet finished. I still have to provide it with a handbrake, windows and a powerful music system," he said with a smile.
The rural carmaker passed matric in 2001, but he could not pursue his dream of becoming an engineer because of poverty at home. He is one of nine children and both his parents are unemployed.
"My short-term goal is to open a motor mechanic workshop in my village and create much-needed jobs," he said...
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Good thread. Africa is the perfect location for a LARGE Wind and Solar generation station. Actually, except for political instabilities, they are the most perfect location in the world.
They have the raw materials They have the labor They have the wind and sunlight They have the real estate They have the funding They have the technology (china)
Why aren't they doing it is the question.
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