Evergo

DRIVING THE FUTURE

Sustainable Business Magazine speaks with Dr Wayne McKenzie, OD, InterEnergy Country Manager (Jamaica) and CEO of electric vehicle charging station company, Evergo Jamaica, about the challenges and successes of spearheading the market in Jamaica.

Evergo is an electric vehicle charging station company operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. It began in 2019 in the Dominican Republic as a joint venture between InterEnergy Systems, under the stewardship of Rolando Gonzalez-Bunster, CEO & Chairman, and US-based Blink Charging Company, but has since expanded to several other countries in the region. Meanwhile, as the number of charging stations has expanded, so has the number of fully electric vehicles in those nations.

Wayne McKenzie, CEO of both Evergo Jamaica and Jamaica Energy Partners Group, explains to Sustainable Business Magazine why Evergo went into the electric vehicle (EV) charging/e-mobility market in the first place:

“Our mantra for Evergo is to contribute to sustainability by demonstrating a respon-

sibility to the decarbonisation process. InterEnergy owns and operates many electric power companies and it also has a vertically integrated utility company in the Dominican Republic.

“As a result, the initial strategy was to convert these core plants that the company owns over to gas and renewables, with a 90% focus on renewables. However, we didn’t feel that core generation was the right direction to go. Transportation globally accounts for 21 to 22% of all carbon emissions. We looked at ways that we could bring genuine change to the transportation sector and realised that we could help foster the e-mobility space. To do this, we wanted to begin installing electric vehicle (EV) charging stations.”

InterEnergy has found this model incredibly successful. In just a few years, Evergo has spread out from the Dominican Republic to a number of other countries –including Jamaica.

“Currently Evergo has more than 500 charging stations in the Dominican Republic alone,” Mr. McKenzie says. “We are also present in Jamaica, Chile, Uruguay, and Aruba. We have also just bought charging company E-DRIVE in Mexico.”

OBSTACLES IN THE ROAD

Evergo’s rapid expansion in the Dominican Republic owes a lot to InterEnergy’s presence there. “InterEnergy is a vertically integrated utility company in the Dominican Republic, meaning we can directly provide power to the chargers ourselves,” Mr. McKenzie says.

However, this is not the case in other countries. As a result, Evergo’s spearheading of EV charging stations has faced a number of obstacles.

“In Jamaica, for example, the incumbent utility company has an exclusive monopoly on distribution and transmission of electricity,” the CEO explains. “That makes our business model in the country a lot more expensive. It’s not just the cost of connecting the distribution line to power these chargers. If the distribution line is not adequate for a level three charger, then we have to do an infrastructure upgrade on the distribution system itself. We might need to provide and install transformers, poles, even conductors, before we can actually connect to a grid.”

It wasn’t just material obstacles that Evergo faced in Jamaica, though. As Dr. McKenzie explains, it faced a cultural resistance as well:

“When we started in 2020, there were many sceptics because nobody knew where the e-mobility space was going. Everybody was afraid of driving EVs on the road because of uncertainty about their ranges. They thought they’d run out of charge and wouldn’t be able to reach their destination. People hesitated over buying electric cars.

When we launched, we used plug-in hybrids because those were the only EVs available from dealers locally!

“However, it is not just Jamaica. These are the same challenges we face in every jurisdiction. At the moment, we’re eyeing Turks and Caicos and again the utility has a monopoly on distribution.”

As in Jamaica, this monopoly potentially drives up the cost of Evergo’s entry into the Turks and Caicos market.

PROVIDING COMFORT

These issues haven’t stopped Evergo, though. “In Jamaica, we went ahead and started installing stations despite the cost, and we did it strategically. We endeavoured to choose locations that would offer commuting users the ability to drive from east to west, across, the island, in comfort. We did it in partnership with utility company Jamaica Public Service, and were supported by the Independent Power Producer group.

“We literally started in Kingston, then Ocho Rios, and the following one in Montego Bay. That meant if you were driving to Montego Bay you would have had enough chargers to keep your confidence up. Today, Evergo has 58 chargers installed across Jamaica. We plan to deploy another 40 chargers plus an additional 13 level three fast chargers in the coming months. Twenty four of those will go in before September.”

Each of Evergo’s charging stations is located in hubs of daily life and installed in conjunction with a host partner.

“Our host partners are restaurants, shops, banks, resorts, and other places where people enjoy day-to-day and leisure activities,” Dr. McKenzie says. “As a result, we’ve used social media a lot to push the message that charging stations are convenient and adequately located wherever people might need to visit. That public communication has been essential.”

This is the type of multi-pronged approach that spearheading companies need to take. Evergo’s efforts have been rewarded, Dr. McKenzie says, as it’s now seeing an increasing take-up of electric vehicles across Jamaica:

“We’re seeing an increase at an exponential rate the amount of electric vehicles present in the country. In 2020, Jamaica had about 20 to 25 fully electric vehicles. Now we’re looking at over 400 EVs in the country. The government has also helped in this respect by imposing far lower taxes on electric cars than on fossil fuel vehicles.”

Evergo has a strong vision for its future. It plans to install hundreds more chargers in Jamaica over the coming years, while growing its portfolio in its other jurisdictions as well. It has the capacity to do this. However, it continues facing some uphill struggles in making its decarbonisation dreams come true.

“Right now, we’re having grid stability issues in Jamaica that are causing problem on the chargers themselves because of voltage fluctuation,” Dr. McKenzie explains. “That’s an immediate but hopefully temporary issue. More generally, if the national grid was in a state of readiness so that we could literally just put these chargers down, that’d make the biggest difference to the future of the EV market here.

“The second option is if charging is not tied to monopolised electricity. The exclusivity of the distribution prevents us from being more creative in our solutions. For example, we could literally put up solar panels that power the charging stations. That means there’d be 100% green energy. That really could work, but is prevented by the model of energy distribution in Jamaica – and in many other countries. Only legislative change will make a difference.”

Nonetheless, the CEO is optimistic about Evergo’s march towards a clean future:

Nonetheless, the CEO is optimistic about Evergo’s march towards a clean future:

“Jamaica is doing relatively well in the EV space apart from that. The lower tax situation has been hugely beneficial. Now, with recent announcement that a scheme for zero duty import taxes on EVs from the EU is here to stay, we can see that the government itself is keen to support the market. The past three years has really seen the government mature in its attitude towards electric cars, and that’s helping to propel future expansion.

“We’re helping to foster that through partnerships with educational institutions and learning agencies in the country. We’re working with them to help create a base of knowledge about how to run and maintain EVs. Evergo is also part and parcel of the Jamaica Electric Vehicle Association, where we promote and encourage e-mobility. That way, Evergo is helping the long-term success of the market.”

ONE STEP BEYOND

Evergo’s future seems assuredly positive. Having expanded from just three chargers in 2019 to hundreds across the Caribbean and beyond today, and with the world turning increasingly towards EVs, the company is in prime position to lead the market. More importantly, it also has the attitude of a market leader dedicated to a clean future.

“Evergo Jamaica is expected to have 300 chargers in the island within the next year and a half,” explains Dr. McKenzie. “We believe that there’s also an opportunity to provision chargers in the domestic market. We want regulations and policies to change so that during the off-peak period there is a reduction in cost for charging EVs from the grid. That way, home charging would become the primary method of fuelling electric cards and roadside charging will become more for emergency purposes.”

However, growing the home charging space must go hand-in-hand with ongoing expansion of publicly available stations. This remains, the CEO concludes, at the forefront of Evergo’s strategy:

“Alongside entering this domestic space, we also want to work with developers and other persons in the commercial industry who want to provision chargers in their businesses. That’s essentially where we’re going as a company. And, of course, we are excited about our entry into Mexico. InterEnergy is looking at taking that one-step further and considering entry into the Spanish market.

“Regardless, Evergo’s future is simply about collaboration with government and agencies in order to maximise international decarbonisation efforts through e-mobility.” c