Fiji is striding towards electric vehicles (EVs) at an impressive pace considering the country’s first EV charging dock launched only a little over 6 months ago, and the first DC superfast chargers are now already awaiting arrival.
The Switch Network is importing the DC chargers, upgradeable to up to 120 kilowatts an hour and has contracted locations in Suva, Sigatoka, Nadi and other areas for installation.
“So, we’re going to have about 7 DC chargers on the roads with more coming,” said Switch Network founder Alex Reddaway on the project’s progress.
“We’ve onboarded our first semi-private sector client in that we’ve now got FNU on our network with their first charger, which is a pretty momentous occasion,” he said at the launch of the Network’s official app which enables users to locate charging stations in their vicinity.
The first charger for the Fiji National University is at the Derrick Campus in Samabula.
“In terms of low emissions pathways, as you know, transport is about 50 per cent of the emissions in the Pacific.
“We’ve just this week received 200 kilowatts of solar that’s going on to 6 contracted sites.
“This will be enough to offset the emissions of about 200 private vehicles, which just shows that we are moving towards our goal of making this, hopefully, carbon negative.
“We need government, we need councils, we need the big developers, we need regulations that will promote this, because at the end of the day this is a system that can be locally powered, reduce costs, reduce imports into Fiji, and can produce cleaner air.”
AISHA AZEEMAH11 April, 2023,
