Installation of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

Initiative Objective

Following the creation of Governor Rell’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Council; the goal of rolling out 25,000 ev’s by 2025, the City of Norwalk Parking Authority took the lead in the State of CT to install six electric vehicle chargers in municipal parking facilities.  The first charger was installed on January 31, 2011 at the South Norwalk Railroad Station. By June 2011, other municipal installations will be at the Maritime Garage and the Yankee Doodle Garage.  The chargers are Level II ChargePoint charging stations manufactured by Coulomb Technologies. We collaborated with a business partner (CarCharging Group, LLC) that provided and installed a turnkey operation from installation to customer services at no cost. Our charging service allows the customer to use either their credit card or CarCharging card to charge the vehicle.  The installation spaces are conveniently located so that the customer can easily pull up to the charging equipment. As technology changes, equipment will be upgraded and replaced.  All ChargePoint networked EV charging stations are managed by the ChargePoint Network and provide EV drivers the ability to locate and navigate to the charging station from any smart phone and the ability to detect charging station availability from a smart phone or Google Maps. This state of the art technology also facilitates EV trip mapping, driver billing, 24/7 driver assistance and greenhouse gas and energy savings (kWh) measurement.  The program was financed at no cost by agreement with Car Charging Group, LLC. The Parking Authority will also receive 5% of the gross revenue generated by the chargers through electricity and advertising revenue.