The city of Seal Beach is working to establish charging stations for Electric Vehicles. Edison has indicated that Seal Beach is the first city to push for this upgrade.
Public Works Director Sean Crumby attended Edison’s Electrical Vehicle Collaborative all day on Friday, Oct. 2nd at UCLA.
Seal Beach previously had two charging stations in its beach parking lots that can be re-established to the new technology. Power is already delivered to these locations reducing the cost and time for design/installation.
Some of the questions/issues currently being studied include: There is grant funding available to re-establish those old stations. Public Works Director Sean Crumby is researching the available grant programs.
The goal would be to install the upgrades at no cost to the city.
There are currently only two companies, Clipper Creek and Coulomb Technologies, which are approved by the California Energy Commission to perform this update.
City staff will be meeting with both companies to interview them and scope out our project.
Funding of the electricity and hours of operation (security at night) are two final details that need to be worked out.
According to Southern California Edison, several Southern California communities have been selected by major automotive manufacturers to be among the first regions in the country to serve as the initial market launch sites.
This region can expect to begin receiving plug-in electric vehicles by the end of this year, with more of these vehicles coming to market throughout 2011 and 2012.
While no one knows yet how large the market for these vehicles will be, SCE’s service territory could see as many as 200,000 plug-ins by 2015 and 1 million by 2020.
Customer expectations will be high and they will be looking for guidance from their communities and electric utilities. The shift in automobile technology to electric drive will impact both cities and electric utilities.
A critical component of the shift to electric drive will be the ease of installation of home infrastructure, placing an emphasis on issues such as city permits, third-party electricians, certified systems and city inspections.
Cities will also need to respond to requests for public charging systems.
SCE will support the cities in their analysis of public charge port locations and quantities. Southern California Edison is serving as a resource to cities in their service territory, helping to provide information about plug-in electric vehicle readiness efforts.
