Article: ACT electric car plan on track

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The Canberra Times -> click here

Canberra is on track to become the third city in the world to support electric cars, with a deal announced yesterday to supply recharge stations in the city with renewable energy by next year.

ActewAGL will supply charging station company Better Place with up to $60 million in fully renewable energy to fire its electric car ''recharge stations'', which will be stationed across Canberra.

A Better Place spokeswoman said the company was not ready to announce where the charging stations would be based, or how much it would cost customers to use them.

However the company insists it is on track to have the infrastructure operational by next year, which would make Australia the third country after Israel and Denmark to support electric car drivers.

Better Place, the international company headed in Australia by former Victorian Labor MP Evan Thornley, announced in 2009 it had selected Canberra to be the first Australian city in its planned national roll-out of electric vehicle infrastructure.

Mr Thornley said yesterday the first stage of the project putting the recharge station infrastructure in place was well under way. And, he said, securing an energy supply was the crucial second step.

''Canberra really is at the cutting edge of what is happening globally ... we're very proud to be doing this work in Australia.''

Mr Thornley stressed the deal was ''a purely commercial deal ... at a full and fair commercial price''.

Environment and Sustainable Development Minister Simon Corbell said the Government had supported the project with planning and regulatory assistance.

''Our support for this emerging technology is another way the ACT is leading Australia to create a lower emission vehicle fleet.''

Better Place and the ACT Government hope to have infrastructure for the electric car network deployed by the end of the year and the scheme up and running by next year.

ActewAGL chief executive Michael Costello said $60million worth of renewable energy would be fed into the mainstream grid, and would be equivalent to what was needed to power the cars for 10 years.