Ireland could be an early model of how electric vehicles will roll out successfully around the world, Paul Mulvaney of ESB tells Paddy Comyn
AS JOB TITLES go, Paul Mulvaney’s new role as head of ESB’s Electric Vehicle Division has one of the coolest rings to it and would have been unthinkable and unworkable a few years ago.
As science fiction and science fact look set to collide with the introduction of the first of ESB’s electric car charging points in the capital, how has the man charged with rolling out a new genre of motoring feeling about his new task, just a few short weeks into his appointment?
“I got the news about four weeks ago and it has been straight into the role. It is a new area, a growth area and it is nice to get involved early into something. Everyone wants it to happen as there are many stakeholders and everyone is lined up in the one direction,” says Mulvaney.
This level of co-operation and agreement is something that will be quite novel to a man who has been with ESB since he left college, working mostly in the generation side of the business.
“A lot of the roles that I had were stakeholder management and this is very much a technology project but it is about making things happen and it is really on the people side of things where I will be involved. After running one of the biggest power stations, the technology side is relatively straightforward. I did a lot of project management over the years and that will be a big element of it.”
Mulvaney sees the job as putting the infrastructure in place and creating the demand for electric vehicles. “People need to be educated about electric vehicles and to want to drive them, but we need to ensure there is a supply of cars and a supply of charging points, so we are working with motor companies to ensure there is an early roll out of vehicles in Ireland.
“We are very anxious to promote Ireland as a test bed. It is a small island, with a single operator of a distribution system and we can put in the infrastructure that all suppliers can use and that can suit all types of cars whether they are plug-in hybrids or full electric cars. We will support all the technologies.”
So when will we see the first charging points – which had been promised before the end of 2009 – in place? “As we speak there are holes being dug in the ground in three locations in Dublin, an announcement of which will be in the new year. They will be in three strategic locations. These charging outlets will be supplied by Carra Ireland and will be also added to locations on the route from Dublin to Cork, over the coming month initially.”
But what is the use of charging points without an adequate supply of cars? While there are several quirky yet slightly impractical vehicles on sale in Ireland, when will we see proper cars powered by electricity in Ireland?
“We are working with many car manufacturers, including Renault and Mitsubishi who will supply the early vehicles in Ireland and these will be the first with mass market vehicles but we are also setting up meetings with other companies such as Peugeot and Citroën who will also be early with electric vehicles.
“These will start to arrive at the end of next year and the year after. We will be doing non-exclusive deals with all the different companies. Ireland will be a good place for these firms to test their early vehicles. ESB will buy several electric vehicles themselves as well as ensuring with manufacturers that Ireland gets an adequate supply of vehicles, many of which are likely to be of limited supply.
“We want Ireland to have proportionally a large supply of cars compared to the rest of Europe.
“The first three charging points will be on a testing phase and, initially, people will be able to register to use them and will get a tag and this will open the charging point and allow them to charge. The three initial points will take about 90 minutes to charge a car, but there will be faster points in the future.”
But in the future, how will the system work and will Ireland’s supply cope with the demand for vehicles, which both the government and ESB hope will exist?
“We expect about 80 per cent of charging to take place at night at home and there is more and more wind power coming onto the system. We see very strong links between wind power that would otherwise would have to be spilled at night time, where we would have to shut down the wind power because the demand isnt high enough and there is a big link between that and EVs that will charge at night time.
“It makes sense for the whole system and you are using green and renewable energy. You are merging the two value streams, the transportation and the electricity value streams.
Mulvaney estimates the average EV user will save between €1,000 and €2,000 per year on petrol.
“You are looking at cents for a charge of a car. It will be cheaper at night time to charge and from an ecological point of view it makes more sense too so we will be supporting that. The government has set ambitious targets that 10 per cent of all transportation will be powered by electricity by 2020. ESB see there being 6,000 electric on Irish roads by 2012, with a jump to 250,000 by 2020.”
How will ESB ensure that the supply is coping with such growth?
One of the things we will do early on is a lot of testing and market research. Early on we will look at the effect on a number of housing estates with EVs and seeing the effect on that and we will be working with the Electric Power Research Institute to ensure that when we roll it out it wont put any stress on the system.
“Using smart metering, people will use electricity at the right time at the right price. We will want the EVs to be able to talk to the wind farm and everything in between.”
Mulvaney wants Ireland to be seen as an early model of how EVs will roll out successfully. “That is what we want. There are a few places that are moving early and we want to be one of them and we will look at the full spectrum of electric vehicles. We are fully behind the targets set by the government. We are working towards those targets and the government has been very supportive.”
One swallow does not a summer make, and likewise three charging points do not mean an electric car revolution, but the signs are good that Ireland will be a leader in a new and exciting motoring world.
