Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Electric vehicle chargers

[Chuck Harrison (cfharr]

We have a growing electric vehicle population (currently 9 vehicles in our
23-unit development) with a few garage spaces but mostly in an outdoor lot
with assigned spaces.

We do not regularly share charging stations (each station is located at an
assigned parking space) but we do share our electrical capacity using a
system provided by this company: https://www.variablegrid.com/ . They are a
small company and there have been a few hiccups but we are reasonably
pleased with their system, which can be expanded over time as more people
get EVs.

We initially planned to use plug-in 220V outlets but changed our minds and
all stations are hard-wired. For outdoor stations especially, the extra
failure point of a plug/receptacle is a concern. It is actually not hard to
disconnect or swap out a hard-wired charging station; if you have the
handyman skills to replace a domestic outlet you can handle this.

We haven't (yet) suffered from copper thieves but it is certainly a risk.
There's a European standard where you carry the cable in your car and plug
into the charging station as if you're using a high-power extension cord. I
wonder if they were thinking of vandalism when they designed that!

Chuck


On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 7:42 AM Fred H Olson <fholson [at] cohousing.org> wrote:

> This thread got me to wondering...
>
> Would Smart Grid technology facilitate EV chargers sharing capacity?
> ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid )
>
> Yes it would...  Here is a 2010 article:
> https://electricenergyonline.com/energy/magazine/542/article/Electric-
> Vehicles-and-the-Smart-Grid-Charging-Forward-.htm
> <https://electricenergyonline.com/energy/magazine/542/article/Electric-Vehicles-and-the-Smart-Grid-Charging-Forward-.htm>
>
> which includes: "The Smart Grid is the key to smart EV charging."
>
> But when will the Smart Grid be available and how does that affect
> EV charging plans now?  I could not find anything about this.
>
> 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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