San Diego, May 27th, 2009

By Angus Clark-CEO, Evoasis/EVSTAT

An EVolution is happening in London, England

London, England is quickly becoming an EV epicenter (epicentre for you Brits) and as such, has had to begin to think-through the issue of EV charging infrastructure in a more immediate and purposeful way than most cities. Notwithstanding London’s desire to be perceived as an eco-friendly city and responsible host of the coming Summer 2012 Olympic Games, the natural tendency to take advantage of  relaxed parking fees, congestion charges, road taxes and other benefits for EV drivers has made London a test bed and template for the future adoption of electric cars. The first player on the field was Reva, an Indian company who has managed to sell well over 1000 of their G-Wiz neighborhood electric vehicles (NEV’s) to early-adopting Londoner’s who have made this less-than-stylish (read ugly) little chap an instant icon in the EV world.

Helpful to this movement is a guy named Boris; Boris Johnson-Mayor of London to be exact. Boris Johnson may also become an icon to the EV world, putting enthusiasm into a business that was badly in need of a sponsor city, while adding enough economic incentives to give the market a well-timed nudge into reality. While not yet a “God” to guys like us-He is not actually paying us to come to London and deploy as such; positive spin followed by tangible action on the part of his implementation teams have created a “causeway” (it is a cause after all) into the City and opened up the real possibility of executing a successful business plan around electric vehicle sales, services and support functions for a number of companies. That at least qualifies him for Sainthood and I will refer to him as St. Boris The EVangelist in all official correspondence to him now and in the future.

St. Boris The EVangelist-The Man, The Myth, The Mayor

While assuring that the Mayor will never get my mail, I also credit several of London’s borough’s with early support of EV charging infrastructure, first and foremost, the Borough of Westminster, who have also recognized the value of supporting these pioneering measures by making areas in the city, zones for placement of Level II curbside charging stations. The Mayor’s office has announced plans to allow private companies to install as many as 25,000 curbside points in the greater London area.

To understand the impact of curbside charging as supporting infrastructure to the EV owner/operator vs purpose-built, multi-point station models, a number of “floating point” variables must be taken into account.

1. Charging times-Curbside is limited to relatively low voltage/low amperage service due to the limited “shore power” on hand which in the UK is typically 208 VDC 30 amps. Still double that of US plugs but not in the fast-charge regime by any stretch, so expect curbside to be a 3-4 hour event/occurrence. Another way of looking at that would be to say each point has an 8 car/day potential as a source. With cars moving on and off and “empty time”, that’s really likely closer to 6 cars/day, assuming one might be “camped on it overnight”. Many residents in London do not have access to off-street parking and have curbside residential parking stickers which allow them to occupy the space overnight.

2. 25,000 curbside points will draw power from the grid during all parts of the day further draining the resources of an already overtaxed power supply infrastructure. It used to be peak-heating which was driving the demand in England-remember, it’s a cold place; however, in recent years this has flipped, becoming peak-cooling instead. Whether this is due to global warming or too much structural glass, geothermal effects or too much hot air from Parliament the net result is that peak energy loads occur in the daytime hours and London is not unused to Summer “brownouts” similar to those that have crippled the Eastern seaboard of the US on a number of recent occasions.  We assume due to the scale and scope of the project, an installed cost of 25,000 charging points would cost 10K USD per point, installed, or 250 Million dollars; not an insignificant investment by any definition. As London charges $6/Hour for parking in many areas, expect parking revenues to be reduced dramatically, as currently, EV owners get a huge break on parking their cars. EV parking year round goes for about $150 dollars a year total cost, so is a huge financial incentive. It’s unclear how long this incentive will remain in the offing. Not forever for sure.

So let’s do some basic arithmetic: 25,000 points servicing an average of 6 cars per day gives you a potential of 150,000 cars per day throughput.

Let’s look at some attributes of the EVSTAT station model.

EVSTAT Stations store power during off-peak and deliver during on-peak, keeping the facility independent from the utility grid during peak-demand cycles

Average cost to bring a station online and operational is 5 Million USD-EVSTAT uses stored energy to provide power during the day. This energy is taken in to the storage bunker at night from a sub-station, to be used for vehicle charging and facility power during dawn-to-evening peak usage times.

EVSTAT stations have a 7000 square foot “footprint” with 24 charging points on the inside perimeter and 48 on the outside perimeter, for a total of 72 points which can all deliver up to 500 volt, 200 amp DC supply, giving the average fast-charge capable EV an 80% top-up in 20 minutes.

Vehicle throughput is 2.5 cars per charge “pump” per hour for an average daily potential of 4,320 cars per day/per EVSTAT station. As curbside can deliver roughly 150,000 cars per day throughput for 250 Million dollars invested, it would require 34.7 EVSTAT locations be built in the greater London area to equal this throughput. Cost of 34.7 stations would be 173.5 Million dollars of capital expenditure.

As the EVSTAT stations are “off-grid” during peak-demand utility times, they would not be a net-negative in the power delivery/usage equation. They also can be used for load balancing by the utilities, with a much more practical “well of power” than the Vehicle-to-Grid schemes currently being explored. Better to go to 37 points for power-draw than 25,000 points, some of which are occupied/operational and others not.

BUT the BIG point is this-You cannot safely perform high-voltage fast-charging at curbside locations, so that’s off the table right away.

EVSTAT stations can make use of used EV batteries which, while no longer efficient after a few years as car power packs, are still half-life capable storage devices, when placed in a large matrix with their peers. While not a final recycling operation, EVSTAT stations can eke out the last useful drops of power from these units for several years, prior to sending them off for final disposal and treatment.

Safety is the first and foremost consideration when dealing with electric vehicle charging. You just don’t want the general public to be too involved in playing with high voltage electrical connections. EVSTAT stations mitigate this risk by providing purpose-built, ring-fenced and professionally staffed service facilities into the mix, while also giving the driver a comfortable, practical place to “hang-out” while waiting for their car to be topped-up.

It remains to be seen which models will be the most sustainable going forward. I expect it will be a “bit of everything” as is usually the case with essential services and transportation schemes. EVSTAT stations plan to be there for the short, medium and long-term developments in the EV industry.

Stay tuned for announcements from us in the near future.

See you all in London-in an EV

Angus