The first networked, solar-powered, electric vehicle charging station east of the Mississippi River in America with Level II (240 volt) and Level I (120 volt) charging capacity for the Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, and most other new electric vehicles using the industry standardized SAE J1772 connectors, began operation today under a 20kW solar carport array.
This fully integrated combination of fast EV charging stations, smart grid, utility company connectivity software and solar, renewable energy generation, represents the current state-of-the-art and next, logical evolutionary step in the developing movement to transition a portion of the transportation sector away from traditional fossil fuels and imported energy, toward cleaner and renewable domestic energy sources, including solar, wind, and geothermal alternative energies.
A very large and enthusiastic turnout of local, state and national stake-holders endured one of the hottest days of the year so far in 2010 to participate in the commissioning of this exciting new technology. The ceremony featured presentations from Congressman Lincoln Davis, Pulaski Mayor Dan Spear and hands-on demonstrations of an all-electric-vehicle provided by the local EV-Charge America distributor, Anitech Motors, coupled to their most technologically advanced vehicle charging system available to date.
EV-Charge America CEO Bob Rosinski said that "Utilizing the smart grid software embedded in the EVCA Charge Net Stations, including GridPoint™ software, means that utility companies all across the country and associated municipalities can immediately have a feature-packed, globally networked software solution today, that monitors and adjusts to real-time grid loads thus allowing them to adapt, modulate and optimize the supply and demand / response of electricity, both on-grid and off-grid when it is used as a transportation fuel."
Further, Rosinski stated "Having clean and available electricity at many points along the landscape will alleviate the fear of running out of electricity prior to finding a recharging station.
This concern by EV drivers is referred to as Range Anxiety. This problem can be further reduced because the EV-Charge America charging stations are visible on Google
map integration, GPS systems and web-enabled hand-held devises.
When EV charging stations are unoccupied and available their web page location icons are colored green. If the charging stations become occupied by another vehicle, the icon color changes to blue. This eliminates the wasted motion of driving to a charging station only to find it already occupied.
Applications such as text messaging by the charging stations to the driver and emails automatically sent keeps EV drivers up to date with the status of their charging and driving experience."
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