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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda 10-01-19 Item 12-7 - Information Item - Request for Information on the Orange County Electric Vehicle Charging Stations 1 ORANGE COUNTY NORTH CAROLINA Asset Management Services Date: September 13th, 2019 To: Board of Orange County Commissioners From: Brennan Bouma, Sustainability Coordinator Steven Arndt, Director Asset Management Services RE: Request for Information on the Orange County Electric Vehicle Charging Stations At their regular meeting on September 3rd, 2019,the Board of Orange County Commissioners approved the acceptance of grant funding in part to replace aging electric vehicle charging stations. During the meeting, Commissioner Marcoplos asked for more information on the shortcomings of the existing County charging stations that will be replaced, how the planned new ones are an improvement, and information on the benefits and location the new solar charging station.The following was prepared by staff to address their questions. On June 10, 2019, Orange County was awarded $147,247 in grant funding from the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center(NC CETC) under the Clean Fuel Advanced Technology(CFAT) 2019 Round 2 grant program. This grant program is sponsored by the NC Department of Transportation and funded with federal Congestion Mitigation Air Quality funds.These funds were awarded to support the County's efforts to replace aging electric vehicle charging stations, purchase a solar-powered charging station with a battery backup, and to lease an electric vehicle. Electric Vehicle Charging Station Replacements: In 2011, Orange County was awarded grant funding to install a network of 16 electric vehicle charging stations in 4 locations across the County.The equipment chosen was manufactured by EATON, which remains a well- established manufacturer of electrical components and who was an early leader in supplying electric vehicle charging stations. Components began to wear out on some of our most-used charging stations in 2015, and they were able to be fixed by EATON and returned to service.An EATON representative at the time said that commercial electric vehicle charging stations have an expected service life of 5 years. Not long after those initial repairs, EATON announced that they would no longer be selling charging stations, supplying parts, or making repairs to their electric vehicle charging equipment.Therefore, since 2016 when charging stations in popular locations needed repair, their components were borrowed from historically less-popular locations such as the Durham Tech Park and Ride lot.This allowed the popular stations to continue functioning, but temporarily disabled a station at Durham Tech Park and Ride. In 2018,the County budgeted funds to replace non-functional charging station equipment and County staff replaced the 4 most used charging stations in the network, those at the Skills Development Center, with Clipper Creek brand charging stations.This brand has a good reputation for simplicity and durability, they are used throughout the country in what is now a far more mature industry, and these chargers are listed on the state purchasing contract. The new chargers were also equipped with the ability to communicate their usage data to a central system once connections are available from the building. This replacement allowed for the still-functioning components of the old chargers to be returned to the charging stations from which they'd been borrowed and for a short time all of the charging stations were functional. P.O. Box 8181 * Hillsborough, North Carolina 27278 Telephone:919 245-2625 Fax:919-644-3001 2 Currently, 3 of the 6 charging stations at Durham Tech Park and Ride have stopped working and cannot be repaired. As a final note, some current electric vehicle models are incompatible with these older EATON stations.There is a necessary communication that occurs between charging stations and an electric vehicle to ensure a safe connection is made.These communication standards have been improved since 2011 with the unfortunate side- effect of creating incompatibilities between older charging stations and new electric vehicles.This means that even when the old charging stations are working,they may not be able to serve their purpose for current electric vehicles. With the availability of grant funding this year, staff applied to replace the remaining 12 stations with Clipper Creek stations which will be warrantied to provide years of good service, equipped to allow for communication of usage data, and serviceable in the event that they need repair. Solar Electric Vehicle Charging Station: These grant funds will also support Orange County's purchase of a standalone solar electric vehicle charging station which will allow 100 miles of total charging per day on renewable solar energy without connecting to the grid.This 3-port charging station is equipped with a large battery that stores the energy from the station's solar panels and then delivers it to vehicles when charging.The charging station comes pre-assembled on a truck and rests on top of a single parking space, so no ground-disturbance is required and the station can be placed in any sunny parking lot. As written into the grant application's scope of work,the solar electric vehicle charging station will be located at the bus lot at Orange County Public Transportation (600 Hwy NC 86 North) and its purpose would be to charge the 3 plug-in hybrid ADA accessible minivans which will form the backbone of their new mobility-on-demand program.This will fully charge the batteries of those vehicles and enable them to travel a total of 33 miles each before switching over to operating as a gasoline-electric hybrid. Given the ability to deploy solar electric charging with no site preparation,this standalone off-grid charging station would allow this new program to launch as soon as the vehicles are ready. During most days,the solar battery will recharge before the chargers are needed again by the transit vans, and Orange County expects this additional capacity to be used by visitors to the facilities. Visitor electric vehicle charging needs for this location are expected to be lower than other County electric vehicle charging station locations due to the lower number of County residents who are directly served by the nearby County Motor Pool facility and Orange County Public Transportation Office.The additional capacity in the recharging solar batteries should therefore be sufficient for the needs of the mobility-on-demand program. An alternative location for the solar charging station could be proposed to grant administrators as long as the charger remained publicly accessible. Locating it elsewhere would require identifying 3 additional charging stations for the electric vans of the County's upcoming mobility-on-demand program as it is currently designed.