Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: more on EV charging stations from River Song

[Fred-List manager (fholson]

Bryan Bowen <bryan [at] caddispc.com>
is the author of the message below.  It was posted by Fred of
the Cohousing-L management team <cohousing-l-owner [at] cohousing.org>

Cohousing-L does not distribute attachments:

The "snip" of CoHousing Houston site plan is at:
http://www.l.cohousing.org/CoHousing_Houston_site_plan-with-EVSE.png

--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------
Hey all -

Chiming in from the resident and architect perspectives.

At Wild Sage, I was able to get two EVSEs installed for free using the
Charge Ahead grant system, and another resident was able to get PV
installed with a different partial grant to more than cover the electric
vehicles' kWh demand. Costs beyond the grants were financed by borrowing
from reserves and establishing a repayment amount in the budget. The EVSE
grant required that the EVSEs be wifi connected for monitoring and
reporting for the grant, as well as for billing (that adds a pile of
initial and operating costs). They are heavily used, and there are other
folks in the community who have installed Level 2 charging stations in
their own garages. People want to add more. We find, across the board, that
availability of charging stations increases the feasibility of owning an
EV, so the numbers jump once you get them installed. WS had 1 or 2 EVs when
we installed the EVSEs, and now there are 7-8. Here's a good report by SWEEP
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiq8fLbiMv1AhWmFzQIHfpOA0gQFnoECAMQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.swenergy.org%2Fdata%2Fsites%2F1%2Fmedia%2Fdocuments%2Fpublications%2Fdocuments%2FBoulder_Electric_Vehicle_Infrastructure_and_Adoption_Assessment_April-2015.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1gvQ2gzlTTmdZXoh9v6jQs>
that's specific to Boulder, but worth a read if this is your sort of thing.
Also, EVs will simply be making up a larger portion of the overall mix of
vehicles out there in the future.

For new cohousing communities we're designing, like Treehouse Village
EcoHousing, CoHousing Houston, Heartwood Commons, and Rooted Northwest,
we're advising:

   - That any garage be able to accommodate Level 1 Charging (easy, that's
   110V 20a usually and almost impossible not to do)
   - Run conduit from each garage back to the house panel for a future
   Level 2 EVSE (220V 50a circuit to accomodate a 40a charger)
   - Don't worry about having the EVSEs in a private garage happen as a
   part of the project - let folks do it later. It's not a good fit for
   Options/Upgrades processes.
   - Feed as many surface parking stalls as possible by placing EVSEs in
   parking lots or on garage walls, wherever it's easiest etc.
   - If parking stalls are dedicated, then provide dedicated EVSE and
   shared vehicle stalls.
   - Be sensitive to triggering a bigger transformer size. It usually makes
   sense to stay below that trigger due to increased costs.
   - Parking configuration and circuiting have a lot to do with how the
   design plays out, but basically we try to get groups to locate two-cord
   EVSEs where they can reach at least 4 stalls.


Billing: My personal take is that billing adds more problems than it
solves. For people who use the EVSE, we suggest you set up a club and
decide how to bill as equitably as you can (you are cohousers, how many
things do we all already share?). Having the EVSEs monitored, billed, and
connected to wifi is a hassle to be avoided if you can. The EVSEs we
installed at Wild Sage cost something like $9000 each. You can buy a non
monitored unit for $500-800. To extend power in our own garage was $500, so
we're looking at nearly a factor of ten in upfront cost, plus wifi and
billing time forever.

As an example, CoHousing Houston chose to have dedicated parking for the
most part, and to provide 2 dedicated EVSE stalls, one shared vehicle
stall, and four additional EVSEs with cords long enough to reach 12 stalls
in carports. Here's a snip of their site plan when we handed it off at the
DD Phase:

[image: image.png]


I think this reinforces a lot of what's said. One big point tho - if you
plan for it in your Site Planning Workshop, it's easier to make it work
later. But, it's essential to keep you eye on the ball otherwise you'll
find that these EVSEs have disappeared from the drawings and construction
process before you ever get to use them....

The AIA doc that Molly found with Katie, who shared it with this group,
ought to be a good primer for your own group's early conversations.

Happy to talk with any of you if you'd like.

Thanks,


- b

BRYAN BOWEN    |    PRINCIPAL   |    AIA   |    LEED AP

*caddis collaborative*
1521 Easy Rider Lane #102
Boulder, CO 80304
303 443 3629
caddispc.com


On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 9:15 AM Chuck Harrison <cfharr [at] gmail.com> wrote:

> @Philip Semanchuk It sounds like you have a handle on computing the total
> kWh required per month but your conclusion that only a few stations are
> required is an unusual one. Our own community has assigned parking spaces
> and has come to a different conclusion: that a station should be located at
> each EV owner's parking stall. This avoids the middle-of-the-night shuffle
> that Fred refers to.
>
> The size of the electrical service required to charge a few dozen vehicles
> is actually pretty modest (as your spreadsheet probably tells you). The
> most impressive work I have seen on estimating service requirements is done
> by AES Engineering in Vancouver BC. A good contact there is Don
> Chandler, Don.Chandler [at] AESengr.com . Don can point you to some general
> documents, or some communities might want to engage AES for a site-specific
> consultation.
>
> Chuck
> Duwamish Cohousing
>
> On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 5:31 AM Fred H Olson <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
> wrote:
>
> > On 1/23/22 Philip Semanchuk <philip [at] semanchuk.com> wrote
> >
> > > For context, we're retrofitting our 46-household coho
> > >(about 70 vehicles) with EVSEs, and we think we'll be comfortable with
> > >just two charging stations for 5-10 years, maybe longer.
> >
> > This is at Pacifica Cohousing, Carrboro, North Carolina.
> > Also EVSE = electric vehicle supply equipment
> >
> > Philip, thanks for your post. I have not read this thread closely or
> > studied EVSE much but have a simple question.
> >
> > How easy is it to share a charging station?  That is, can multiple
> > vehicles be connected to charge sequentially without manual
> > intervention? Can they be effectively queued up to automatically
> > charge as a vehicles turn arrives after the vehicle preceding it in
> > the que is done?
> >
> > Sharing laundry equipment requires manual intervention to move clothes
> > around tho I understand some cohousing communites have ways of doing
> > each other's shuffling to minimize the effort.  I would hope
> > ESVE's can avoid middle of the night tasks...
> >
> > FRed
> >
> > --
> > Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
> >      Email:        fholson at cohousing.org      612-588-9532
> > My Link Pg: http://fholson.cohousing.org
> > _________________________________________________________________
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> >
> >
> >
> >
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