Car owners must pay for the energy they use:

• Traditional car owners pay for their petrol, or diesel, at petrol stations
• Electric Vehicle (EV) owners must pay for the electricity they consume to charge their batteries

The price of a Powered Camping Site, or Cabin, includes an allowance for usual domestic consumption of electricity – and is not sufficient to cover EV charging.  Also the Occupation Fee for on-site van owners does not include a component for EV charging.

• EV charging costs are in addition to any accommodation charges, and must be borne by the EV user, and not, by other guests of the Park

The un-negotiated price for charging an EV is $50.  Un-negotiated means an EV user just plugs in and starts charging away without first discussing it with the Park Office, e.g. running a cord out a cabin window after dark, and charging covertly overnight.

The price for negotiated EV charging is 65 cents per kWhr, with usage determined by the charging app on the EV vehicle, or the app on the user’s phone.  This price is high because it is not subsidised by state governments or shire councils.

Safety considerations during charging are the EV user’s responsibility, e.g. cords should not be placed such that they create a trip hazard, nor should they be positioned where they can be run over by other cars.  The cords must not be near a campfire, or cooking flames.  Finally, the parked EV should be at least 2.5 metres from any building, structure, caravan or tent. 

If you have any questions please contact us in the Office,

Andrew and Julia

CURRENT NETWORK IMPACTS OF EV CHARGING

EV charging affects the “diversity factors” for the Park’s electricity network.  These factors are used to reduce the calculated maximum demand/stress on circuits by assuming that not every connected user will be pulling the maximum amount of electricity, all at the same time.  These reduced demands are then used to determine the diameter of cables and the capacity of circuit breakers.  As charging an EV is like having an electric jug on all night, going full bore, they can over-stress these existing network arrangements.

QUANTIFYING IMPACT OF EV CHARGING ON PARK PROFITABILITY

A standard user of a motel room or holiday park cabin currently uses around 9kWh per day.  As a typical mid-sized EV today such as a Hyundai Ioniq could require up to 38 kWh to fully change, this could materially increase electricity costs for a single night stay by a factor of 4.2x, eroding operator profit margins.  Popular EV models by Tesla currently have batteries as large as 100kWh (11x).  As EVs are released which are suitable for towing caravans and trailers, such as the Ford F150 Lightning which will require 125 kWh (14x) to 170 kWh (19x) to fully charge, the need for user pays services will become more compelling and urgent.  As the arrival of these vehicles could occur by 2025, there is a pressing need for the accommodation sector to develop and refine service models which could be scaled to meet the growing needs of EV customers

Source: Electric Vehicle Charging Integration Study for Motels and Holiday Parks, SA Department for Energy and Mining, 17 Aug 2021