EV Plus Mobility and Universiti Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah (UMPSA) have unveiled lamp pole EV chargers at the university’s campus in Pekan. It is essentially the first public rollout in Malaysia for integrated EV chargers within street furniture.
Such integration – usually involving not only lamp poles but also bollards and sidewalks – is something that can be seen in Europe but has yet to gain traction in Malaysia. Interestingly enough, UMPSA’s lamp pole EV chargers were developed in-house.
Engineered by UMPSA, powered by EV Plus Mobility
Specifically, the chargers were the manifestation of a research project called Electric Vehicle Charging Accessibility Through Urban Retrofitting Solutions, which is led by the Director of UMPSA Centre for Automotive Engineering (CAE), Ts. Ikram Rashid.
As for EV Plus Mobility, the Charge Point Operator (CPO) mainly contributes in terms of commercialisation by implementing payment gateway and app integration. Also involved in the deployment is Windcraft Energy, which provided the solar-powered lights for the lamp poles.
According to Ts. Ikram, the design of their lamp post EV charger is highly robust as it can be configured to support an AC charging speed of up to 22kW if required. This also applies to its activation method, which can vary from an RFID card to mobile apps.
Meanwhile, EV Plus Mobility is already aiming to convert 1,000 standard lamp posts to lamp post EV chargers throughout Malaysia. The CPO is looking to work with the state governments in order to achieve this objective, and at the same time, it is also looking to collaborate with more local educational institutions.
UMPSA Pekan’s lamp post EV chargers are already open to the public
EV owners are already able to test out UMPSA Pekan’s new lamp post EV chargers, which were installed at the campus’ Faculty of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering Technology. There are three charging bays altogether, and each charger has been equipped with its own Type 2 cable.
They are capable of supporting an AC charging speed of up to 7kW with a charging fee of RM5 per use, regardless of the energy consumption or charging time. Activation can be done using the EVlution mobile app.
