Clipper Creek to start upgrades next month
As long as we’re writing about infrastructure, we thought that we would try to find out more on the status of the upgrades to the existing EVSE units installed around the state of California that we learned about in August of last year. As it happens, Clipper Creek, one of the upgrade partners, is going to start on them in June.
Clipper Creek’s portion of the upgrade involves approximately 635 individual EVSE installations at over 300 sites around the state. These legacy systems include various types of installations, including Liberty PlugIns (LPI), AVCON, and Small Paddle Inductor (SPI) EVSE (see photo on right). According to the terms of the grant provided, all stations will be updated at each selected site.If there are multiple SPI units installed, one functioning SPI unit will be left for existing users. Most existing sites have two to four EVSE units installed.
Clipper Creek’s plan is to start in three areas primarily – Sacramento, San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles. Work will continue throughout the state going as far south as San Diego, and as far north as the Lake Tahoe/Truckee area. Their intent is to “update the widest footprint of infrastructure possible”. The three initial target areas should be completed by year end. Other areas should start to see upgrades by mid-2011, with completion targeted for all areas by Spring 2012.
We currently have an inquiry into EVConnect, the other upgrade partner performing system upgrades, to determine their status.
So basically, if you live in Northern California, or in parts of the Greater Los Angeles area, look for the old EVSE units at Costco and other sites to be upgraded starting next month. Good news for those LEAF drivers in those areas.
It’s great to read about progress being made in the EV charging infrastructure. Clearly upgrading the legacy EVSEs is the low hanging fruit and it appears even that is taking a rather long time. The location, approvals, circuit, etc are already in place, they only need to swap out the EVSE. Hopefully you’ll hear from EVConnect soon. They’ve been unusually quite this whole year. I was hoping they would create some competition for ECOtality and the EV Project.
I’m at the point now where I wish the the states and/or the federal government would create an incentive for businesses to install weatherproof 120v outlets for public EV charging. With the provision that the circuit must be upgradeable in the future to 240v 40a for a Level 2 EVSE. There should be a standard sign for the pedestal which indicates the spot is for EV charging only and charging must be available to the public. I’ll bet in less than a year you would see massive public charging footprint. Then, over time, these 120v circuits would be improved to 240v and EVSE installed in those locations where the public charging proved popular. Just a thought…
August 3, 2011:
You should re-check your sources at ClipperCreek or Costco. Costco has decided that they WILL NOT change out their ageing EVSEs. Instead, they will pull them all out permanently and re-allocate EV parking back to regular parking spots.
Costco is getting to be really greedy… just like greedy Netflix.