This final report documents the activities, accomplishments and what was learned during the completion of our project ARV-13-056. Six electric vehicle charging stations were installed at two separate locations, Coronado Municipal Golf Course and Coronado Cays Park. Two dual port chargers and one single port charger, supplied by OpConnect, were installed at each location by Saturn Electric. Permitting for this project was completed within three months of the project start and installation of the units was completed in April 2015.
These units were announced in a press release in October 2015. In addition to standard news media contacts, this press release was also sent to the San Diego area electric vehicle car dealers. For additional outreach and communications, OpConnect has visited many San Diego area electric vehicle car delvers to provide them with OpConnect welcome packets. These packets include an OpConnect card and instructions on how to locate charging stations with the web portal and mobile application and how to access the stations.
Electric vehicle drivers can access the chargers by either using a major credit card, or if they are registered OpConnect members, they can use their OpConnect card, the mobile application, or the chargers’ touchscreen to provide their membership credentials. During an initial six-month evaluation period following installation, forty-seven charging sessions were done using these chargers, with a majority (forty sessions) of these being done at the Coronado Cays Park location.
Early evaluation of the financial results show that these chargers are on their way to becoming cash neutral or positive, especially if additional revenue from advertising operations can be realized in the future. This project was successful due to strong support and cooperation from the City of Coronado to streamline and accelerate the permitting and installation process and this should be noted as an important component in future projects.
