Developing an effective electric vehicle landscape will mean developing grid infrastructure, implementing standards and refining revenue models.
As the world grapples with growing energy uncertainty, net-zero targets and climate disruption, Australian consumers are embracing electric vehicles. In May 2026, one in five new vehicles sold was an EV, and shifting consumer patterns, governments rebates and subsidies and growing fuel costs continue to drive this trend.
As businesses, government organisations and individual motorists embrace EV technology, a robust charging network that can reliably service energy demand for the full range of public, transport, industrial and infrastructure applications is becoming ever more important.
However, according to Vignesh Srinivasan, Channel and Marketing Manager with Schneider Electric, rolling out a mature network is about more than simply installing more fast chargers at a greater number of locations.
Investment, grid capacity and regulatory constraint are all factors that complicate the roll-out of a more effective network of EV fast chargers.
“That’s the capital expenditure investment, but then there’s the operational investment as well. You need a company or an agency to actually maintain these chargers,” Srinivasan said.
“People too often find that the charger they want to use isn’t working. There might be two chargers at a site, but a long line has grown at one charger because it’s the only one that works.”
Beyond capacity
Adding to these cost and maintenance barriers are limitations on the current electrical infrastructure. Most people looking to recharge their car battery don’t have the time to wait hours for their vehicle to be ready to use.
Fast charging, however, requires significant amounts of current and power – often more available capacity than networks are able to deliver.
“If we’re talking about high-speed charging, we are typically talking about a dedicated one or two MVA load, but most of our distribution has only got about 500 kVA to one MVA in transformer capacity,” Srinivasan said.
“So we need investment in the distribution infrastructure and often it does need a medium-voltage or a high-voltage connection as well. That results in additional capital expenditure in operational investment.”
Capacity limits could be addressed by adding extra substations or transformers to the grid, but even then, load management is still required to ensure power is available when and where it needs to go.
That’s why utilities and distributed network service providers will need to take holistic grid-load management into consideration, including trading opportunities and energy storage solutions.
The third challenge is one of simple geography: there are regulations and other limitations controlling where a charger can be installed.
“It has to have a suitable charging point and it has to have clearance around it,” Srinivasan said.
“That’s why we see most chargers being installed in destination points like offices and shopping centres, or at service stations, where companies already have a revenue model and the real estate space that’s required.”
Holistic solutions
From Srinivasan’s perspective, the challenge in creating a more comprehensive fast-charging network is a systems engineering one, which will require careful planning, grid integration, load management, protection, monitoring and lifecycle thinking.
At the moment, however, each stakeholder is focused on their own area of expertise rather than considering the problem holistically.
“I think we need a combination of experts,” Srinivasan said.
“It needs a systems expert; you need grid integration and grid planning engineers; and you’ll need finance experts contributing as well. Then there are the legal and political aspects.
“Usually, in a country like ours, either the government drives a decision by bringing all these stakeholders together, or we will need to have change leadership driven by organisations who are willing to invest.”
Because fast charging is used by bus networks and trucks, not just individual commuters, states and local government areas that are able to control their whole network have a great opportunity to push change.
Up to standard
To help Australia build the fast-charging infrastructure it needs for an EV-dominated future, Srinivasan urges the creation and adoption of new regulatory standards.
Just as electricity networks are regulated to ensure uniformity and accessibility across the country, fast-charging networks would benefit from experts who can define industry standards so new network infrastructure can be implemented consistently.
To support these infrastructure updates, Schneider is developing containerised hardware solutions, which have a transformer and metering points and can be plugged into a utility network, drawing on excess power.
“More importantly, we support load management solutions: looking at both local load management in terms of how much an EV charger is consuming and what times, and then also connecting with the grid,” Srinivasan said.
“We’re providing grid automation software, and then looking at dynamic dispatching, both upwards and downwards across the network to manage that entire load portfolio.”
To find out more about how Schneider Electric is developing robust, scalable and commercially viable charging networks, visit the website.
