Congrats to Dogrock

Published on 22 June 2021

Pyrenees Shire Council would like to congratulate Dogrock Winery at Crowlands for their innovation in installing an solar-powered electric vehicle charging station. 

Read more from Dogrock's Media Release:

Dogrock winery is a small, family owned business in the production of ultra-premium wines. Located in the Pyrenees region of central Victoria the business is a 5 red star rated Halliday winery and is also in the Powercor Hall of fame for local businesses for environmental responsibility.

The business and dwellings have been off-grid since inception in 1999. With the addition of another 5 kW of solar panels the business is very happy to announce the installation of an electric vehicle (EV) charging station.

Owner and winemaker Allen Hart explains, “EV is definitely the future of transport and people who arrive at the cellar door in an EV can now partially charge their vehicle while tasting some great wines”.

He further noted “It’s estimated that across a one hour tasting approximately 70 km of additional battery life will be deposited free of charge or emissions into your EV”.

At present, the winery is unsure if they are the first cellar door in Australia to offer this service from an off-grid facility. “There are others who offer EV charging and may be carbon neutral via an array of solar panels but are still grid connected- as we are off grid all power we generate is emissions free, both for our winery operation and for EV charging,” Dogrock co-owner Andrea Hart went on to note. 

Council is proud of Dogrock’s initiative in providing emissions free electric vehicle charging at its winery and we would encourage other operators to follow their lead.