ECOtality has convinced the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that it was equipped with the required technology and knowledge to deploy a charging network and infrastructure to collect driving and charging data about early electric vehicle adopters.
Coulomb and ECOtality are poised to cater to the charging needs of people who may start using electric vehicles such as the Leaf full EV from Nissan and GM’s Gas extended-range Volt scheduled to be launched in the near future.
ECOtality has received a $115 million grant from the DOE for the installation of 15,000 charging stations in homes and public locations as part of the EV Project at no cost to the customer. Coulomb did the same and came out with $37 million for ChargePoint America, added official sources.
It was revealed that the DOE-sponsored programs cover most of the deployment areas for both the Leaf and Volt. ECOtality’s EV Project will be encompassing metro areas in Arizona, Tennessee, Oregon and Dallas-Fort Worth. Coulomb’s ChargePoint program will cover Michigan, Florida, Northern California and Austin, Texas. Also there are some overlapping areas where both services will be available for free. This includes Southern California, Washington, D.C., and Washington State’s Puget Sound region.
The companies plan to install Level 2 chargers for providing 100 percent charge in around four hours using a J1772 standard interface, which will be featured in both the Leaf and Volt and in future EVs also.
Although the EV Project is available to both Volt and Leaf buyers, their ChargeEV program is only applicable to the Volt. Coulomb sources added that it wants to make sure that Volt drivers are set up and ready even before they bring their cars home.
It is believed that most of the charging will be done at home rather than at work or on the road initially. However people without a garage will have to use public charging stations.
“We therefore need to envision charging stations as parts of networks allowing EV drivers to connect on the Web via phone or other device of their choice, to find an available charging station or monitor a car’s ‘juice’ level and in the charging process. The concept of smart charger is not only dear to the EV drivers but more so to the utilities,” said ECOtality officials.
There is bound to be an increase in electricity consumption over the next 10 years which will pose problems for utilities and grid management. A smart grid has to be developed of which smart chargers are a part. Utilities can then use excess capacity that they can’t store like at night. Smart grid and smart charging allow for charging on demand that benefits utilities and customers. The smart charger and the utility will charge the vehicle during sleep cost effectively, explained officials.
Shamila Janakiraman is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Shamila’s articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Tammy Wolf
