South Africa turns to off-grid EV chargers amid severe energy crisis to increase EV adoption and alleviate high fuel costs ^↺

In light of South Africa's ongoing energy crisis, which frequently leaves residents without electricity for upwards of eight hours a day, it's easy to see why the country's population would be sceptical of electric vehicles. ZeroCC (Zero Carbon Charge), a company started by two South Africans, hopes to change this negative perception of electric vehicles by installing over 120 off-grid, solar- and wind-powered fast chargers throughout the country.

The DC fast chargers, which are capable of delivering 100 kW DC power, will be installed every 150 km along the country's national and regional routes, with more chargers clustered around big cities, like Cape Town, Pretoria, and Johannesburg. To achieve this, ZeroCC has signed agreements with a 30 local farm stalls, hotels, and restaurants along the route.

ZeroCC claims that the chargers will be completely off-grid, operating exclusively via solar and wind power, thereby alleviating both range anxiety and the need to rely on Eskom, the embattled national power utility. The added benefit is that the chargers will be completely carbon neutral during operation, making it a much cleaner option than the grid, which currently relies on coal for around 70% of electricity generation capacity (via The International Energy Agency).

Current EV adoption rates are rather abysmal, with sites like Statista reporting as little as 433 EVs sold in 2022, and around 485 projected for 2023. In 2022, there were 363,696 new vehicles sold (via GoodCarBadCar), meaning EVs accounted for as little as 0.12% of overall sales for the year.

ZeroCC plans to charge ZAR9/kWh (US$0.47). In contrast, a litre of petrol costs ZAR25.22 (US$1.32) at the time of writing. This isn't an apples-to-apples comparison, however, since the average petrol car travels 72% further on a full tank than the average EV travels on a full charge. At the end of the day, it might work out slightly cheaper to own an EV in South Africa if ZeroCC's charging network pans out as planned. 

In theory, these off-grid EV chargers in combination with something like a Hyundai Ioniq 5, which features up to 3.6 kW vehicle-to-load capabilities, could even provide an attractive solution to the unstable and unreliable power grid.

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