Need for "High" Amp L2 Charging in Wichita?

[swaltner]

As a Leaf owner in the Wichita area, I've been talking to the trustees at my church about installing some L2 charging stations. The church is located right off the highway at the intersection of I-135 and US-400/US-54. The initial discussions centered around installing a pair of 208 Volt, 30 Amp L2 stations. I picked two of our parking stalls since they are the only ones that are right against the building (conduit only, no trenching). Every other parking spot would require trenching concrete or asphalt, which I want to avoid. The plan would be to put up a "suggested donation" sign to cover our electricity costs and make these publicly available. I'm curious if it would be worthwhile bumping these installs up to something like the ClipperCreek HCS-60, which provides 48 amps to the vehicle to assist any traveling Teslas.

A couple of thoughts I've had on this:

- The estimated cost for two 30 Amp L2 stations is $2,100 (parts/labor). Upgrading one/both of these from 30 Amps to 48 Amps would cost roughly $750 each (added EVSE cost, larger wire, etc...). Since I'm currently the only church member with an EV, I'd like to keep this cost as low as possible.

- While we likely could support an 100 Amp HPWC on our breaker panels, I don't think I could talk the church into installing a system that would be limited to to just Tesla vehicles. I really think I need to stay with a J1772 EVSE to get this through.

- Tesla Motors has Wichita listed on the SuperCharger map on the 2015, so the long term need for a faster L2 charging station in Wichita would be negligible. Once a nearby Supercharger is installed, the need for the HAL2 station goes away.

- PlugShare currently lists a pair of HPWC installations in town, one of them is from a TMC member. Both are list as "inside garage, please call", making them less convenient to use than a spot available 24/7. It looks like the Tesla owner that works at Spirit Aerosystems has a 14-50 available during business hours during the week. Other options faster than 30 amps in the local area include a truck stop and RV park, both with 14-50 outlets.

- The church is located in a residential area, so the only things within walking distance are a gas station (same block) and a public park (two blocks away). That means there's not a lot to do for the hours it would take to charge a Tesla on a road trip.

It boils down to getting a feel for if the added 18 Amps of power would be worthwhile to road trippers for me to request additional funds. It's not a mega-church, so any expenditure will be "scrutinized" for lack of a better word. I know the jump from 30 Amps to 80 Amps on a HPWC would be helpful, but how helpful is would the 50% boost really be

 

[Lloyd]

Kudos to you for being proactive and REQUESTING high amperage L2 which will serve your parishioners for some time to come.

Eaton and Clipper creek make EVSE's to 70/80 amps

For one station to supply the most charging to the most vehicles, a J1772 station would be the most universal. It looks like you have done most of your homework on costs. The least expensive would be 14-50 plugs, but limited to 40 amps on a 50 breaker.

You might try appealing to Tesla and see if they would extend the 'hotel' rate of 50% off the price of an HPWC of $1200 for making it public. The idea of a donation box next to the EVSE is a great idea! I would like to see others make more sites public, with an honor system to cover the costs of electrons . :smile:

 

[dsm363]

Great work. How about two NEMA 14-50 outlets as Lloyd said? Since it isn't close to anything you are unlikely to get many Tesla visitors without a 80A HPWC.

Maybe you could do one ClipperCreek HCS 60 for yourself then a 14-50 that can be converted to J1772 once demand and funding is there?

 

[Cottonwood]

Maybe you could do one ClipperCreek HCS 60 for yourself then a 14-50 that can be converted to J1772 once demand and funding is there?

This is probably a good compromise for usefulness. Of course, I like high amps, but it does cost money.

Two other suggestions:

1. Because this is a curch, you can accept charitable donations. Because this is for the community good, there should be no problem sending the donors IRS letters for helping cover the cost of the stations. You could make an appeal to an audience muck larger than your local congregation to help put this in place which might give you the funds to put in an HCS 100.
2. The donation box is a great idea, but in our modern world also consider accepting PayPal. Setting up a simple page on your church web site that explains what you are doing and allows users to make a PayPal donation should not be hard. You can easily set up a shorturl.com link and QR Code link that points directly to this page. You could even use this for accepting donations to cover the initial construction. Setting up a PayPal account is very easy for your church and people with out their own PayPal account can still use it with their credit card.

Good Luck and many kudos to you for doing this! This is a great model for other non-profits!

 

[dsm363]

Some may balk at giving away free electricity. You could install an access control device but that costs money. You could then charge what the local electricity rates are to break even. The hardware and installation would be donation only.

 

[dsm363]

I like the PayPal idea too.

 

[swaltner]

I had pretty much ruled out an 80 Amp J1772 due to cost. The ClipperCreek CS-100 comes in at $2,195, which is pretty steep for a small congregation. I'll ping the destination charging group at Tesla tomorrow to see about extending the discount/free HPWC offer to non-profits.

I had considered access control, but the cost seems prohibitive. For example, for the upgrade price from a pair of ClipperCreek LCS-25 units to a ChargePoint dual-nozzle system would cost over $6,000. That's enough to cover someone with a Leaf stopping the church EVERY night and mooching a full charge for 5 years. It just doesn't make sense financially. If there are lots of concerns about how much the electricity will cost the church, for about $100 per outlet/EVSE, we could add a refurbished electricity meter and know how much power is really being used.

Depending upon what Tesla says, maybe the best setup would be:

- 30 Amp EVSE
- NEMA 14-50 outlet
- 80 Amp HPWC

 

[dsm363]

ClipperCreek sells a device that charges credit cards directly or even restricts it to a PIN I believe. Much cheaper than $6,000. I think it is a few hundred but worth calling them.

 

[TexasEV]

ClipperCreek sells a device that charges credit cards directly or even restricts it to a PIN I believe. Much cheaper than $6,000. I think it is a few hundred but worth calling them.

The keypad option so people can pay by phone with Clipper Creek charging stations was quoted a few months ago at $900. There is a $6/month service fee. Also the highest amp charging station it is compatible with is the CS-60 (48A). I don't know why. You're much better off with a donation box.

 

[Lloyd]

Eaton's point of sale was a $600 option, but $18 per month and anyone can swipe their credit card for charging. Visa, M/C, Amex, Discover. You set up how much you want to charge per hour, and time is purchased in 1/2 hour increments. Compatible with 70 amp charging.

 

[dsm363]

The keypad option so people can pay by phone with Clipper Creek charging stations was quoted a few months ago at $900. There is a $6/month service fee. Also the highest amp charging station it is compatible with is the CS-60 (48A). I don't know why. You're much better off with a donation box.

Agree. I brought that up in case the major road block was giving away electricity without guaranteed way to get money in. Donation box and paypal honor system cheaper.

 

[swaltner]

Thanks you for the input everyone.

I've seen the off-network access systems, which include both the ClipperCreek's "Liberty Access Module" and the Schneider Electric RFID systems. Both of these would be a hassle to handle on an on-going basis, so I ruled them out. I'll really be limiting the choices to ones without access controls that rely on an honor-based donation system. We probably will put electric meters to monitor the energy going to cars, but just to keep a little bit of an eye on total usage to see if it's free-loading is a problem. If so, we can work out access controls after the fact.

I sent an e-mail to Tesla Motors Destination Charging group last night and got a response this afternoon. In the response, they declined to provide a discounted HPWC at the location I proposed. The main point of the e-mail was

One of the things we look for is nearby amenities (food, lodging, entertainment, shopping, etc.) if we place these stations outside of a lodging type setting. Unfortunately, there really is none of these types of places near the church for owners to occupy themselves with while charging.

So, as I read this, it's not the fact that it's a church that was an issue. The issue is that, as I noted in my first post in this thread that this isn't the greatest location, since it's in the middle of a residential area and there's not much to do in the area for the hours that it would take to charge a Model S. So, for others that attend a church in a more suitable location, this may be an option for you.

With this understandable decline from Tesla Motors, for the time being, my church will not be providing a high-amp L2 station that is available 24/7 in Wichita. The benefit to the public over a plain NEMA 14-50 outlet just doesn't seem to be there for the added cost that we would incur. My thoughts are now along the lines of installing a single ClipperCreek HCS-40 EVSE and a single NEMA 14-50 outlet in these two parking stalls and doing the same things that had been discussed about putting a sign up to accept donations (hopefully to include PayPal). Any donations above the on-going electrical expenses could be kept around for future expansions, possibly to include an 80-amp HPWC. However, by the time that happens, I suspect Tesla Motors will have a Supercharger in the Wichita metro area to connect those in the South up to the I-70 corridor. This setup of a single EVSE and single 14-50 outlet would actually work out pretty good in the long term because, while the standard Nissan Leaf EVSE only works with 120V, I've upgraded mine to support 240V operation. When the second church member becomes an EV owner, I would simply switch to using the 14-50 outlet and leave the EVSE for the other person. Swapping the 2nd EVSE with a plain 14-50 outlet would save something on the order of $500, bring the total cost down to somewhere around $1,500.

 

[dsm363]

Sounds like a good way to go. Ask some of the experts here but maybe consider putting in thicker wire than you need. That would make swapping out for a higher power EVSE easier years from now if that ever came up.