Recent research by Dr Andrew Simpson at Curtin University shows that switching one million petrol cars to electric cars could reduce toxic air pollutant emissions by 150,000 – 300,000 tonnes annually. If these cars were charged with renewable energy, they would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 3.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per year.

Further, these one million cars could enable generation of almost 45,000 gigawatt hours of renewable energy through vehicle-to-grid ancillary services linked to a smart grid. This would further reduce CO2 by 41 million tonnes, or 8 per cent of Australia’s total yearly emissions. These are significant impacts – but they depend on electric cars being powered by renewable energy.

So it’s a good thing that electric cars are the best possible customers for renewable energy. They are major appliances, with significant energy needs, but they come with storage – as much as 25 kilowatt hours. This means that an intermittent supply – such as from wind and solar generators – is much less of a problem. In fact, as most cars are parked most of the time, they are available to accept an intermittent supply when it’s available.

But this benefit will only be realised if the energy supplier is managing a smart-charging infrastructure that balances the charging load against energy availability and network capacity, and is committed to buying renewable energy.

Better Place, a two-year-old start-up company based in Silicon Valley, has based its business model on this very need, and is playing its part to progress the global transition to electric vehicles. The company does not make cars. Instead, it builds the networks that will make electric vehicles easy to use, affordable to own and fun to drive.

Nearly every major car company – and several new start-ups – have announced plans to build and sell electric cars in the next few years. For those cars to have an impact on the air pollution and CO2 emissions of car fleets, they need to become a mass market proposition using renewable energy, rather than a niche alternative for highly motivated ‘green’ consumers.

Even though electric cars are much quieter and have better acceleration, drivers won’t choose them unless a number of barriers are overcome. They must be easy to use – that is, easy to keep charged. This can be ensured by installing charge points in homes and car parks, so that vehicles can be plugged in when parked to keep the battery topped up. These ‘smart’ charge spots will recognise each individual car that plugs in. They will meter the actual charge used and send the information to the Better Place network. This means the cost is billed to the driver, so people will be able to plug into a charge point at someone else’s home without affecting their energy bills.

If the driver wants to go further than the charge of the battery they can drive into a battery, exchange station and swap the depleted battery for a new one, in a process that takes a few minutes. The initial infrastructure installation will provide sufficient coverage to meet the needs of drivers travelling in, around and between major cities. The in-car software integrates information about the battery’s state of charge and the car’s location to provide active global positioning advice.

The recharging infrastructure is networked to ensure vehicles are recharged when they need to be, but also to avoid another potential difficulty: imposing too much demand on the local network or on the grid as a whole. To make sure this is not an issue, the company uses networked infrastructure, and schedules charging to favour the times when renewable energy is most available.

Affordabillity is also a key element of the successful uptake of this system. In order to make electric vehicles affordable, Better Place pays for the (expensive) electric car battery, and recovers costs through a monthly charge paid by the driver.

The cost of rolling out the infrastructure is also considerable. In Australia, Better Place has entered into a partnership with AGL Energy and financial institution Macquarie Group. Macquarie agreed to assist in business development and to help raise $1 billion for the building of infrastructure. AGL agreed to provide electricity from renewable sources to power the electric cars.

Better Place plans to start rolling out infrastructure in Canberra in 2011 and across the rest of Australia in 2012. This will make Australia only the third country with widespread electric car recharge infrastructure after Israel and Denmark. Trials and infrastructure installation in both countries is set to begin next year, with services being offered in late 2011. So expect to see the switch to electric very soon.

Ben Keneally is Head of External Affairs, Better Place Australia.