Addressing a massive pain point for EV owners, Kerb Charge gives users their own charging station without getting in the way of the streetscape. Sean Carroll finds out more.

As electric vehicles (EVs) become more popular in Australia and people slowly start buying in, we need to find ways to charge all these cars.

EV ownership is rising rapidly across the country, with now more than 70,000 in Australia, according to the Electric Vehicle Council. In Victoria, the Department of Transport reports the number of registered EVs has more than doubled in the past 15 months, from about 7,000 in July 2021 to nearly 15,400 at the end of October 2022.

But if home owners don’t have an off-street charging solution, how will they fill their cars up? Kerb Charge, a recent homegrown invention, aims to tackle this issue. The Kerb Charge unit is a 32A, 7.2kW charger and sits very close to the kerb, making it an ideal charging personal charging solution for a single EV.

Yes, there are public EV chargers popping up across the country but if you can’t afford the costs of having your own battery or it doesn’t work with your housing situation, what do EV owners do?

“Some are suggesting that EV users drive to a public charging station but that’s pretty much the equivalent of coming home from work and saying you’ve got to leave your home to charge your phone. We all have electricity available in our homes, it’s just a matter of accessing the charging capability,” Kerb Charge founder Rod Walker says.

From an electrician’s point of view, he says that the unit needs to be installed by certified electricians, creating a revenue stream.

The lead inside the Kerb Charge unit is only electrically live when the car is charging and is protected by RCDs built into EV supply equipment as well as the safety switch in the home. The Kerb Charge box itself is also designed to be flood-proof and has a water IP rating of seven, meaning the connections remain dry even when lowered into the ground.

Rod, who is an accountant, saw a need for this innovation, noting that if there weren’t more efficient ways to get charge points to users, EV adoption wouldn’t truly start, adding another bump in the road to a net zero future.

There have been similar attempts at giving residents their own EV charging solution none seem to be as efficient as Kerb Charge. In Central Bedfordshire in England, a pilot program saw a cable run from the house out to the car space but it didn’t sit flush with the street, causing its own issues.

Kerb Charge’s small design and efficient housing make it a much more attractive proposition.

“The unit was designed for the household; it goes under the footpath and is physically extended when it’s ready to be used. It sits flush with the pavement and a key element to note is that it’s not a public charger, it’s owned by the household,” Rod explains.

Kerb Charge is a patent-pending technology that aims to take away a major barrier to off-street EV charging. At the moment, if a household doesn’t have an EV charger, they might be illegally running a power lead across a footpath, creating a myriad of safety concerns. There have been instances of people tripping over the cable when walking past and in some wild cases, other EVs parking next to them and stealing some charging time.

When installed out the front of your house, users can just drive up to their car space, as usual, unlock the charging unit and plug it into their car via a supplied cable. There is an obvious concern with parking available in the specific position the Kerb Charge solution is next to, but if home owners can be confident of their parking space availability at least once a week, charging won’t be an issue.

Another feature of the solution is that Kerb Charge wanted it to be entirely manual with no springs, hydraulics or electronic movement. By making it a manual device, it remains a robust, trouble-free solution.

Users open the Kerb Charge unit with a key, pull it out of the ground and plug their EV in. It’s a simple solution but since its official launch and approval by Energy Safe Victoria, Kerb Charge has started working with Port Phillip Council in Melbourne, Victoria to install several units.

Under the Port Phillip trial, ten households are paying around $5,000 each to have a powerline and charger installed that will run from their home, underneath the footpath and come up 100mm away from the kerb. They must also obtain insurance.

The installation will be under a ‘Kerb Charging Permit’ and offers a template for councils hoping to give home owners an EV charging solution. The permit costs residents $124, covering the price of the installation, and there’s a $100 ongoing annual fee. The average cost charged by Kerb Charge for all the components and installation is around $6,000.

Residents looking to purchase a new car will feel much more comfortable committing to a vehicle they know will be charged when at home in a safe and secure way.

“The units will be manufactured here in Melbourne, employing local tradespeople and ancillary staff,” Rod explains.

He adds that the more Kerb Charge is moving forward, the more buzz the team is getting and traction more future installs.

The 2022 Federal Budget saw the government double down on its commitment to EVs by promising an improved EV charging infrastructure in the $800 million earmarked for clean energy commitments.

Rod wonders if the funding will trickle down to the home owners hoping to buy the Kerb Charge unit. However, after a successful debut, the solution is now the only personal EV charging solution on the market and it offers considerable savings on infrastructure provision as the model decentralises power requirements. It’s out there for home owners to buy and electricians to install.