Prioritising safety in EV charging: Simultaneous Contact Explained 

At Trojan Energy, safety is the foundation of everything we do. From the very beginning, our goal has been clear: to deliver EV charging that communities can rely on, not only for convenience and reliability, but for the highest standards of safety. 

One of the most important areas we address is Simultaneous Contact – a key risk factor in electrical systems that can impact both EV drivers and the public when not done properly.  

In this blog, we’ll explain what it is, why it matters in the context of on-street charging, and how Trojan Energy’s technology and design safeguards remove risk and set the standard for safety, ensuring people are always protected. 

Simultaneous Contact occurs when a person touches two conductive parts at the same time, potentially creating an electric shock hazard. 

In EV charging environments, particularly in cross-pavement charging where cables connect vehicles to power supplies, it becomes a crucial safety consideration. 

Without the right safeguards, simultaneous contact could pose unnecessary risk to drivers, pedestrians, or our installation teams and technicians. That’s why Trojan Energy has made safeguarding it a design priority.  

Public charging points aren’t used in controlled environments – they’re part of our streets and pavements, which means public EV charging infrastructure must be safe for everyone who interacts with it, whether that’s someone charging their EV, a pedestrian walking nearby, or a maintenance engineer. Without safeguards, Simultaneous Contact could pose serious risks. 

From day one, our engineers have prioritised electrical safety in the development of our technology. We’ve built in multiple layers of protection to remove the risks associated with Simultaneous Contact: 
– Design safeguards: Every component, from the adaptor to the charge point to the power supply, is engineered with protection in mind.  
– Exceeding industry standards: All our equipment undergoes rigorous testing to ensure it not only meets but goes beyond industry safety standards. 
– Fail-safe operation: In the unlikely event of a fault, our system is designed to automatically default to a safe state, preventing exposure to risk. 

This layered approach means that safety isn’t dependent on a single mechanism. Instead, it’s embedded at every stage of the process.  

Our Chief Technical Officer, Sandy Thom, explains this in more detail in the video below: 

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Video

We’ve created two supporting documents: 

A clear overview of Trojan Energy’s approach to electrical safety. It is suitable for anyone interested in how we keep people safe. View our electrical safety and simultaneous contact overview.

A comprehensive breakdown of the engineering principles and safeguards behind our solution, designed for technical audiences.  View our technical simultaneous contact assessment document.

Safety isn’t optional; it’s essential. By addressing risks like Simultaneous Contact head-on, Trojan Energy continues to set new standards and benchmarks in public charging safety. Our mission is to deliver infrastructure that not only accelerates EV adoption, but does so in the safest possible way for communities everywhere.