ChargeNet takes over seven Alpine Energy charging sites from Mt Cook to Waimate

ChargeNet has taken ownership of seven public charging sites across the Mackenzie Basin and South Canterbury from lines company Alpine Energy, with pricing at those sites moving to its standard national rates from 18 September.

The sites are at Aoraki/Mt Cook on Bowen Drive, the Twizel Events Centre, the Tekapo tavern carpark, Main Street in Fairlie, the Cox Street carpark in Geraldine, Orari Station Road, and 125 Queen Street in Waimate. They sit on some of the South Island’s busiest tourist routes, linking the Mackenzie Basin to the coast.

For drivers, the chargers themselves are not new. Alpine Energy’s sites have been visible in the ChargeNet app and available to its customers for some time. What changes is that ChargeNet now owns and operates them, taking on maintenance, upgrades and customer support directly, and folding them into its national maintenance and upgrade programme.

The company says it will contact customers ahead of the pricing change on 18 September and directs drivers to its app for current rates. Alpine Energy’s own pricing had applied at the sites until now; ChargeNet has not stated how the two compare.

ChargeNet thanked Alpine Energy for establishing the infrastructure and supporting EV uptake in the region. The acquisition continues a pattern of lines companies and councils that built early charging infrastructure handing it to specialist operators as networks mature, and lands in the same week as data showing multi-plug sites are used far more heavily than single-plug ones, a shape most of these early regional sites do not yet have.

ChargeNet’s network now runs from single-plug sites like these to multi-bay hubs such as Kaiwaka, where the XPeng X9 set New Zealand’s public charging record last month. Meridian’s network passed 500 charge points in August.