Charger for a Commercial Building

[tstafford]

All,

If there is another thread on this please just point me in the right direction.

I am part owner (and exec) of a small (70 employee) software company in Nashville. We are in the process of relocating to a new local facility and will be the primary tenant in the new space. The landlord is doing a very significant renovation to accommodate us and has offered to add a charging station in the parking lot. He simply asked that if we are interested that we provide some direction to him on what we'd like. This would be a public station that is available to anyone. Note: the other tenant in the building is a restaurant.

Has anyone been through this before? What's the best way to figure this out w/o being selfish and making it some sort of Tesla only solution?

Thanks.
Tim Stafford
Nashville

 

[dsm363]

Check out the J1772 EVSEs from ClipperCreek. If they haven't paved the parking lot yet have them run conduit to multiple parking spaces. That way you can cheaply added more stations over time.

 

[Evbwcaer]

The best value for a single, high powered (80 amp) charger is a Tesla High Power Wall Connector ($750)that has had a J1772, "universal" plug installed on it by quickchargepower.com.

For around the same price you could 1 or 2 approx. 30 amp J1772 and/or 1 or 2 Nema 14-50 outlets.


Are you looking more to quickly charge a small number of cars or let multiple people charge over a workday?

 

[mkspeedr]

I have two of these for my building - this is for the volts, CMAX and Fusion. They work great and we have them mounted in a nice all weather box (in case it ever rains again). They work great.
Bosch EL-51254 Power Max 30 Amp Electric Vehicle Charging Station with 25' Cord

I have the same all weather box with the Tesla wall charger (80 amps). We have a total of 3 plug in parking spots.

 

[tstafford]

Are you looking more to quickly charge a small number of cars or let multiple people charge over a workday?

I'm not sure I totally understand this question. Ideally it would be a perk for employees and something available to other visitors to the building.

 

[mkspeedr]

We have it set up for a employee perk or customer visit. There is a charging schedule so everyone can charge their car during the workday. I am sure we will need to add another Bosch charger soon - those goofy hybrids need to charge when they get to work and after they go to lunch so the spots are full all day. We will probably add another Tesla charger soon - we have a lot of customers who drive Tesla (a lot).

 

[dsm363]

I'm not sure I totally understand this question. Ideally it would be a perk for employees and something available to other visitors to the building.

Basically if you have one high power charging station a car that can't accept anywhere close to the max could occupy it the entire day. For work where people will be plugged in for 8 hours or so and you aren't planning on making them move their cars when fully charged (better if they do as mentioned above) then having multiple lower powered stations would be better. Might cost a little more though.

 

[Father Bill]

So have them install a number of 5-15 outdoor outlets so that PHEV's can trickle charge throughout the day. A couple of 70 amp Clipper Creek J1772 and one HPWC. That is if he is giving you the option.

Peace,

Father Bill

 

[tstafford]

Thanks guys. Sounds very reasonable. I'll reach out to the Clipper Creek guy.

 

[Cottonwood]

I wen through the analysis of the best EVSE for a local community center in some detail recently.

I found that the dual 48 Amp EVSE's on a single pedestal to the best, most cost effective solution from ClipperCreek: Dual HCS-60 with Pedestal

If you only want to serve Tesla's, the Tesla HPWC is a very cost effective option, and Clipper Creek now sells pedestals on which you can mount 1 or two HPWC's

If you are on a Commercial Electric Rate schedule, check on demand charges, they can be shocking. When I looked at the "all-in" total demand charges in Boulder, CO from Xcel Energy, the Demand Charges were over $20 per kW.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I wen through the analysis of the best EVSE for a local community center in some detail recently.

I found that the dual 48 Amp EVSE's on a single pedestal to the best, most cost effective solution from ClipperCreek: Dual HCS-60 with Pedestal

If you only want to serve Tesla's, the Tesla HPWC is a very cost effective option, and Clipper Creek now sells pedestals on which you can mount 1 or two HPWC's

If you are on a Commercial Electric Rate schedule, check on demand charges, they can be shocking. When I looked at the "all-in" total demand charges in Boulder, CO from Xcel Energy, the Demand Charges were over $20 per kW.

If they're on Nashville Electric Service, rate schedules are at Nashville Electric Service .

As Cottonwood points out, your company will be paying both for the power and for the demand. In NES' rates I see demand charges of around $14/kW-$18/kW, depending on total power consumption.

PHEVs can only charge at 3.3kW. (Exception: 2016 Volt is now up to 3.6kW on a 240V supply.) 3.3kW charging allows for 7 to 14 miles per hour, depending on temperature, precipiation, wind, vehicle efficiency and use of climate control. Even at 7mph, an 8 hour day would add 56 miles. That's into stretch commuting territory. At that point I'd suggest that really you want to favor telecommuting over driving into the office.

Because non-fee EV chargers are relatively cheap, over time demand charges could end up dwarfing the initial cost. ($46.2/mo for each additional 3.3kW charging at $14/kW; for comparison, if you pay $0.13/kWh and fully charged a Volt at 3.3kW 20 days per month, the cost of the kWh used would be less than that!) So, I'd see if you can easily see how your electricity demand varies during the day. It might be that you could provide some charging in the morning without incurring additional demand charges. At 3.3kW, shorter-range PHEV like the Prius Plug-in or Ford Energis would be fully charged in under 2.5 hours, a Gen 1 Volt in about 4 hours and a Gen 2 in 4.5 to 5 hours. Then beyond using "spare" power, to minimize demand charges you want to favor consecutive over simultaneous charging. So in a cost-effective set-up:
- some chargers would only be available during periods of low-demand; you would have PHEV drivers plug into those in the morning.
- some chargers would be available all day and have a cooperative charging system where owners unplug and move their car.

If people think that's penny-pinching, just consider that saving $46.20/mo means $554.40/year that can be diverted into other benefits.

So, if I'm thinking ahead, to having more people with plugin cars, I'd be asking the landlord to have the building wired so that you can easily hook up a bunch of 240V/16A chargers as needed (if you have the EV parking by a wall, Clipper Creek LCS-20 is outdoor rated and $379 each), along with an easy ability to control when they're powered on (which you want so you don't worry about Nissan Leaf owners stealing electricity at weekends ). For the near term, I think that would maximize the benefit of benefit dollars. I think that longer term, more people will have long-range electric cars, so there won't be a financial benefit to charging at work and then you can put more of the money into hardware and software that makes telecommuting better.

 

[Cottonwood]

As Cottonwood points out, your company will be paying both for the power and for the demand. In NES' rates I see demand charges of around $14/kW-$18/kW, depending on total power consumption.

I used the term "all-in" to mean including all the taxes and surcharges. In Boulder, the Demand charges are a little over $14 per kW, but after adding all the taxes and surcharges, the "all-in" Demand charges were over $20 per kW.

Some background: Most residential electrical users pay for electricity based on Energy charges only ($/kWh). There may be differences in rates based on time of day, but billing is based on energy use only. Most larger commercial customers pay for electricity based on the peak Demand in Electrical Power ($/kW) plus energy charges ($/kWh). In most areas, the Demand charge is based on the largest Power Demand during the month, averaged over 15 minute intervals.

For example in Boulder, CO, last year, a typical residential electric rate was about $0.12 per kWh, and the "all-in" commercial electric rate was about $23 per kW of peak Power Demand plus $0.048 per kWh of total energy use. For "peaky" loads like EVSE's, the Demand Charges can dominate energy charges unless you can force the EVSE charges to be at low peak power draw times.