Tuesday, 18 March 2025

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (13:43): Over the last fortnight ex-tropical cyclone Alfred brought down power to hundreds of thousands of homes across Queensland and northern New South Wales. One example of household resilience that has emerged from this is that some have been able to use the batteries in their electric vehicles, which are much bigger than most home batteries, as batteries on wheels that can provide enough power to run a fridge and other appliances for up to a week. EVs that are equipped with two-way charging systems can act as an emergency generator or supply for devices such as lights, laptops, TVs and fridges, for your own home and for your neighbours. One woman made headlines in late 2023 when she used her EV to power her son’s dialysis machine after a previous set of storms cut power to south-east Queensland. Her son, who is on the transplant list, would have faced life-threatening health consequences had the dialysis machine remained off during the mains power outage. As the ABC reported last week, given the storm flattened hundreds of transmission poles, in Australia there was:

‘No quick fix’ to power outages in Qld, NSW as ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred lays bare grid vulnerability

The science is clear: we can expect more extreme weather events from climate change. Electric vehicles can be an unlikely hero to help us in the fight against climate change by not just reducing emissions when we drive but also helping us remain resilient to the impacts of climate change, which makes it even more important to help people to buy EVs by reinstating subsidies.