Workplace Charging Situation

[Young]

I want to know how companies are supporting EV charging at the work place.
At Intel in Santa Clara, the situation is not good. There are more than 20 plug-in vehicles, but there are only 2 chargers. Charging costs $1/hr.

Young

 

[nlagnew]

At SAS Institute in Cary, NC, there are currently something like 20 vehicles and four EVSEs. They ask us to limit our charges to 4 hours (will be changing to 2 hours) and move our cars so we can share. We are not charged for the electricity.

The new building currently being built will have several more chargers (I think 8) and the building where I currently work is supposed to be getting a new parking deck, and there will be several chargers there (and possibly some plain old 120V receptacles).

When I was the only one on campus with a PEV, I had my pick of the 4 chargers. Now, not so much. I expect it to be better in the next 6 to 9 months.

My company is regularly recognized by the "Great Places to Work Institute", and things like working with early adopter EV drivers is the kind of thing that makes it so.

 

[smkettner]

I can drive my Leaf about 50yds out to the barn on gravel and plug my R1 brick into a NEMA 6-50.
A bit of a PITN so I am only doing it as needed which is almost never. No fee.

Installation of a couple stations was considered but at close to $30,000+ it was dropped. Probably a misguided and expensive estimate.

 

[FairwoodRed]

Poorly in my case. I used to be able to trickle charge at the parking garage (free, but payment offered), but that was taken away because of another BEV who didn’t ask permission. My secondary work site has an L6-20 outlet, but only because I paid to have it installed (also free, but payment offered here too). I only use work charging for half a day every week, but I’d sure like to help get more EVSE’s installed around me for when I'll need them – Just can’t seem to get permission.

 

[bowthom]

In my opinion the best option for "at work" charging is 120V receptacles, lots of them. Not cost prohibitive and no need to play "musical EV's moving them around single or double EVSE's. No need for EV only parking. You can leave your car plugged in all day and not cause demand charges. Just turn them off at night or whenever workers are gone. Simple, effective, cheap

 

[abasile]

My employer has refused my requests to allow regular charging, even on existing 120 V outlets. Mid-level management has been supportive, but not upper level management. I am allowed to charge only on an occasional, "emergency" basis. I really don't understand this. Those of you whose employers are supportive, count your blessings.

I'm hoping to identify a willing co-worker who lives within blocks of the office and would be willing to let me charge at their home. I'll need it this winter.

 

[thankyouOB]

we have a more than a few blinks. half of them are in popular spots and are always ICED, while the others are in a very remote spot.
i prefer to use one of two L1s in the basement of a very large underground lot. they are almost always available.

management supported the blinks, which now charge a $1 an hour, but would not create special parking spots for EVs.
they do not block use of the L1s, but offer no special parking there either. because they are three flights of stairs below the first work level, they are rarely blocked when i get to work.
i can go back and forth without the juice, but prefer the freedom of having the extra juice, especially in rainy or cool weather. it is never really cold here in coastal CA.

 

[rumpole]

In my opinion the best option for "at work" charging is 120V receptacles, lots of them. Not cost prohibitive and no need to play "musical EV's moving them around single or double EVSE's. No need for EV only parking. You can leave your car plugged in all day and not cause demand charges. Just turn them off at night or whenever workers are gone. Simple, effective, cheap

Level 1 charging in the workplace is indeed the best solution. Level 2 is wasted if cars arrive in the morning, are charged by noon, and sit for the rest of the day. With L1, there's no car shuttling, the cars are parked most of the day anyway, and here in Maryland, with at our average electric rate of 14 cents, it's 20 cents per hour to charge. The biggest problem is figuring out who to pay and by what means. At the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, ev drivers worked out a system where they pay the NIH credit union, and the credit union sees that the funds go to the right place.

Details at http://www.ors.od.nih.gov/pes/dats/parking/Pages/Electric-Vehicle-Pilot-Program.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And, if you're thinking "oh, it's the Federal government, they can do anything", it's actually far more difficult to set up charging like this in the government than in the private sector. The first step is to talk to your boss, or the building manager, or the building leaseholder, since often your company doesn't control it's parking lot directly. Usually, once they understand it's on the order of tens of cents per hour, and you're perfectly willing to pay, that takes care of the "stealing electricity" argument. Then, you need to do a survey to estimate how many folks might want to charge. More than likely, you will find folks who have thought about getting a Volt or Leaf "if only I could charge it at work".

Then survey your site, since you might have plugs already installed that you never noticed before. If not, then you would have to get plugs installed, preferably at the "far end" of the parking lot, where they would be ice'd less often and not cause resentment. Leviton has come out with a GFCI plug designed for L1 charging that claims to eliminate nuisance tripping.
See it at http://www.amazon.com/Leviton-T7591-PEV-Receptacle-Controlled-Evr-Green/dp/B004G6YEVK" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ultimately, your workplace could end up with a bank of a dozen or so L1 outlets wisely placed in the parking lot, probably for the same cost as one L2 EVSE. What I would like to see would be retrofitted light poles in the parking lot, so one pole could be surrounded by four ev's.

 

[ksnogas2112]

Ask me again in 2 weeks. The new building (2014) will have stations and I just fired off email to team in charge of building it to see what their ideas are.

 

[rawhog]

I work at Sacramento Airport. For a year and a half I was allowed to park in an area that had outlets for some county owned EV's that went away. Then suddenly I was told that I would have to start parking in the main employee lot "like everyone else". I had offered to pay for my usage and had been repeatedly told that would not be necessary. They conducted a survey to see if there were any employee ev owners who would like to charge at work. There was me and one other. So, those outlets sit unused. I now drive the minivan to work. So nice of Sacramento County Airport Systems to go out of there way to prevent me from being green. :twisted:

 

[rawhog]

I work at Sacramento Airport. For a year and a half I was allowed to park in an area that had outlets for some county owned EV's that went away. Then suddenly I was told that I would have to start parking in the main employee lot "like everyone else". I had offered to pay for my usage and had been repeatedly told that would not be necessary. They conducted a survey to see if there were any employee ev owners who would like to charge at work. There was me and one other. So, those outlets sit unused. They have not offered any alternative. And now I now drive the minivan to work. So nice of Sacramento County Airport Systems to go out of there way to prevent me from being green. :evil:

 

[smkettner]

I work at Sacramento Airport. For a year and a half I was allowed to park in an area that had outlets for some county owned EV's that went away. Then suddenly I was told that I would have to start parking in the main employee lot "like everyone else". I had offered to pay for my usage and had been repeatedly told that would not be necessary. They conducted a survey to see if there were any employee ev owners who would like to charge at work. There was me and one other. So, those outlets sit unused. I now drive the minivan to work. So nice of Sacramento County Airport Systems to go out of there way to prevent me from being green. :twisted:

Do they have any subsidized vanpooling, bus pass discounts, or other programs to comply with reducing traffic or polluton?
I would try to slip in with that program if it exists.

 

[Caracalover]

Several factors at work here, and those of us with government jobs may not be aware of them.

1. No tax money from fueling an EV. Too many of them get on the road and payroll may not be met, due to that lowered revenue base. Hence why mid managers will support, and upper managers will deny.

2. 240V charging is far better for the grid in most areas where the peak hours are 11 AM till 5 or 6 PM. The steady draw of the 120V may seem easier to deal with, but if the draw on the grid can be eliminated before peak it is an advantage that is hard to dismiss.

3. Paying for anything to reimburse the government is difficult. They want to charge based on the exact amount of energy transfered, and without a meter, that is not possible. This makes it expensive. A 6.6 charge for an hour pulls twice what a 3.3 pulls, and so how to make it fair is an argument that goes on at the higher level, and is easier to deny than allow. Allowing free energy is wasting tax dollars, so it is easy to say no, especially with the #1 reason above.

The crazy part is easy to see where I work. The City of Burbank installed a 480V charger - for an hydrogen bus that has never used it, and never will. That charger sits unused, and was installed at a great expense. But can I charge my Leaf even on 120 at work? Of course not. The hydrogen station they installed also is a huge waste of money, but I digress. They did install 11 chargers around town, but they now charge $2 an hour for those. I don't see them used much, although when they were free they did bring in business to the merchants, generating the tax revenue that is needed.

Progress in Burbank is considered natural gas. I see that as two steps back and one step forward, but the savings are hard to dispute. For CNG I know they give residents a very low rate to fuel at the station they installed, and I think employees qualify for it as well. Sad part of that is the station charges about a dollar less than regular gasoline, and so those people that have to pay that rate (Non-residents) get reamed. They base that price on the demand for fuel to get around, not the demand for natural gas.