Nathan Hage is neither a developer nor an energy expert, nor anything else you might think would be crucial to retrofitting a group of 45 flats in Sydney’s inner south with solar and EV charging. He works in logistics, but the one qualifier that he firmly holds is that he’s a resident of the Zinc Apartments, and perhaps through his enthusiasm, the job fell to him to manage this ambitious project.
Typical of most owners corporations, there was not a lot of money to splash around.
So, in came the hacking. How to do more with less.
And some solutions he and the team he worked with came up with were seriously big cuts to conventional costs. The EV charging, for instance. The Netherlands-based company the team found slashed the costs of conventional, large cables housed in clunky metal boxes at top prices and instead offered a nimble, low-cost alternative that he likened to the cables on old-school speakers (if anyone can picture these).
Even better, the system can grow as needed, with two cars able to be plugged in for each in situ length of cable, exactly where they normally park, on demand, as needs grow and more residents succumb to the lure of clean, renewable energy for their favourite toy on wheels.
Even more interesting in this podcast is the collaboration between the residents, owners and tenants alike.
In our view, whatever Nathan’s day job is specifically, he could well embark on a new career anytime he wanted in helping other apartment dwellers flick the switch, given the gargantuan barriers faced by many other owners’ corporations wanting to decarbonise – just sayin’.