*John Casey at an EV charging point in Ennis. Photograph: Natasha Barton
CLARE’s existing infrastructure is too weak to encourage more people to drive electric vehicles, a Green Party senator has acknowledged.
Fast charging points for electric vehicles can be found in Ennis, Lahinch and Shannon with up to fifteen street chargers located in places such as the county town, Kilkee, Lisdoonvarna, Newmarket-on-Fergus and Sixmilebridge.
East Clare is deprived of charging points, one electric vehicle owner in the area told The Clare Echo. “There are no public charging points if you go from Ennis to Portumna and back to Nenagh. Businesses and tourist attractions should be considering installing charging points to try and encourage to stop at their premises and stay local”.
Senator Roisin Garvey (GP) has acknowledged bids to entice people to get behind the wheel of an electric vehicle have been hindered. “There isn’t enough infrastructure, it is very hard to say to people go to electric cars because they are not very affordable, I’ll be waiting for a second hand one myself, until we can give people confidence with the e-charge infrastructure in our county it is very hard to be encouraging people to do so”.
Individuals living in rural Ireland are understandably less inclined to drive electric as a result. “It is something we have to get right, whatever about urban areas where they might have the Luas and the Dart and anything you’re having yourself, in rural areas we don’t have a lot of choices on transport, we have some and there have been some improvements but we will be the ones needing electric cars and proper infrastructure so that we know when we get to a place there will be a charging point that’s working”.
Since purchasing an electric car in 2017, John Casey has clocked up 175,000km in his EV. “It would be fair to say I wouldn’t go back, it is a tremendous pleasure to drive a full electric, it is so smooth, comfortable and is pretty much emissions free at this stage. I’ve since installed solar panels on the roof, any day the car is home on a good fine day it is going to get topped up, you could easily hit your daily driving needs from the power of the sun in summer time, not so much in winter,” he said.
Living in Ennis, John detailed that the infrastructure in Clare is “good and reliable from the point of view of charging around the country”. He commended hotels and premises such as The Armada Hotel, The Falls Hotel, The Old Ground Hotel, Hotel Woodstock, the Radisson Hotel and Vaughan Lodge all of which have charging facilities.
While the cost of purchasing an electric vehicle even with the assistance of a grant can be expensive, John flagged that the selection of EVs available is growing. “They have incentives in terms of half-price tolling for full electric vehicles but people look at the up-front cost of the car and that additional amount that you have to pay for an electric vehicle as opposed to a petrol or diesel and they think it is quite expensive, if you are doing any amount of driving you will recover that over a number of years. The running costs are substantially less than running a petrol or diesel car and it is only going one direction with the increasing price of petrol and diesel. I’m charging my car predominantly on night-rate electricity at my home at an absolute fraction, maybe a quarter or less than the price of filling a car with petrol or diesel”.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Senator Garvey noted that Clare County Council have yet to avail of SEAI’s on-street public charge point scheme for local authorities. “There has been no limit to the amount of funding and support available to the local authorities from the Department of Transport because I’ve raised the issue myself wondering why we don’t have more charging points, I know from talking directly to the Minister for Transport there is no shortage of funding for e-charge points for local authorities. Just recently, he announced funding for communities to apply for e-charging points”.
A spokesperson for Clare County Council told The Clare Echo, “The government initiative for EV charging points in residential areas provides for part funding of EV chargers on public streets or public carparks which provide overnight parking for local residents. A strategy is being developed in Clare County Council for the provision of these EV chargers suitably located in residential areas where users predominately do not have access to off street parking. Funding applications will be made to SEAI for these charger points in 2022.”
Commitments were previously issued by Council Director, Carmel Kirby to work with ESB “to optimise the delivery of the EV charging network in Co Clare” following the Climate Action Plan in June 2019 which targets having 800,000 EVs in Ireland by 2030.
