Good Governance

Australia has a vehicle charging problem

EV car charging is sparking more than we bargained for.

Currently Australia has about 50,000 Light Electric Vehicles (“LEV”) fl oating around, and it’s widely accepted that electric vehicles are the way of the future. It is anticipated that the number of LEV’s will swell to over a million in Australia by 2030. A percentage of these LEV owners will reside in apartment complexes, so how are we managing the charging stations in our residential strata properties?

Not only will each individual lot owner eventually require a designated (and metered) charging station at their exclusive use carpark bay, but the common property and commercial/retail visitor parks will inevitably require LEV charging stations as well. A feasibility study into provisioning for such an upgrade to your strata property can be done by your project manager and no doubt require the obvious pre-start consultant investigations, such as: • Electrical engineer’s audit of current power supply to building, i.e., do we need more to cater to the car charging draw? • Condition of the current wiring system and ability to add private meters, ie., mature buildings may fi nd their wiring does not meet the current code requirements. • Private certifi ers assessment of a building application to construct such upgrades. These types of upgrades are likely to be assessable building work under the Building Act. But what about the less obvious planning and design issues that are starting to emerge? LEVs, including electric cars, skateboards, scooters and the like, are a serious emerging fi re risk. Internationally, millions of dollars of damage has been caused by LEV fi res and explosions. These concerning international trends have tweaked the att ention of our local regulators, the National Construction Codes Board, NSW Fire Brigade and the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, to name a few.

LEV charging stations are considered a special hazard under the Australian National Construction Code and as such, Deemed to Satisfy provisions apply when designing a LEV charging station solution.

Lynda Kypriadakis,

Diverse FMX

A lithium battery fi re heats up to over 2,000 degrees Celsius and uses 100,000 litres of water to extinguish

© Adobe Stock - stock.adobe.com

So, what is the actual risk?

The batt eries that drive these LEVs are an alternative energy fuel source that can be highly volatile and toxic when dysfunctional. Increased exposure to batt ery malfunction occurs when the batt ery is of low quality, in poor condition or damaged, overcharged, and/ or old. LEV batt eries are known to explode or overheat during charging, and in fact, 33 percent of car charging fi res start when the batt ery is on “charge” mode. Issues particularly appear to occur when charging is not done in accordance with the manufacturer’s charging stipulations. These small lithium-ion batt ery packs of cylindrical batt ery cells look like typical AA batt eries, but bigger. These are connected into a group and protected in a metal or hard plastic case. In some LEVs the batt ery pack can be removed from the frame and charged elsewhere, inside the apartment, for example. When a faulty batt ery malfunctions or short circuits it doesn’t catch on fi re per se, but an unstable chemical reaction occurs that produces a lot of heat very quickly. That heat pressure build-up results in popping or explosion, followed by clouds of thick toxic vapour emerging from the batt ery enclosure. This vapour cloud is a highly fl ammable mix of toxins that can cause respiratory distress and asphyxiation to