800 Walgreens Outlets to Provide Onsite Charging Stations

[xcel]

The Wave of the future is crashing down on the past… Will there be enough PHEV/BEVs on the road to take advantage of them?

Wayne Gerdes - CleanMPG - Aug. 11, 2011

Walgreens is promoting the LEAF and other plug-in vehicles with charging stations.

Walgreens plans to offer charging stations at approximately 800 of its outlets locations across the country by the end of this year, making it the nation’s largest retail host. The company’s neighborhood stores will provide convenient locations for EV drivers to recharge near home or work. The charging stations will feature either a high-speed Level 3 DC charging that can add 30 miles of range in as little as 10 minutes of charging time, or a Level 2 charger that can add up to 25 miles of range per hour of charge.

Major markets expected to host these sites include Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Select locations in Florida, New Jersey, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington will also receive EV charging stations. Installation begins later this month.

Walgreens already has installations under way for EV charging stations at more than 60 stores across Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth and Chicago.

According to the DoE, Walgreens will make up as much as 40 percent of all public EV charging stations across the country after its project build out is completed.

Walgreens President of Community Management and Operations, Mark Wagner:

“We are excited to provide locations to charge up in neighborhoods across the country. As more Americans embrace environmentally sustainable technologies, our convenient locations make us uniquely positioned to help address the concern around ‘range confidence.”

Walgreens has a long-standing commitment to reducing energy usage and expanding its renewable energy initiatives. The company became the nation’s first drugstore chain to install a geothermal energy system at one of its stores in Oak Park, Ill., last November. The company’s Mira Mesa, Calif., location became the first drugstore to receive LEED gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council. Walgreens also will have more than 100 rooftop solar installations at stores and distribution centers by the end of the year. In addition, the company utilizes an energy management system that monitors electricity, water, heating and cooling and waste management at more than 1,100 stores to help reduce energy usage and maintenance costs while extending equipment life.

Rates?

Digging a little deeper, it appears eVgo has three charging plans in Texas allowing customers to pay through a three-year subscription service including a home plan, mobile plan and complete plan.

• The home plan includes a home charger (installed at no cost) for $49 a month.
  
  
• The mobile plan includes the home plan as well as the ability to use all eVgo stations and the electricity consumed for $79 a month.
  
  
• The complete plan includes the home charger, access to all eVgo stations as well as payment for the electricity for car charging during off-peak hours on the home electric bill for $89 a month.

Whether those rate plan rates translate to any other state in their network is unknown?

[herm]

It wont translate to other locations, its based on their relationship with a local power company.

Over at the Leaf forum we are keeping an eye on this, the controversial part is that walgreens is planning to charge about $4 for 90 minutes of L2 charging, that wont take you far in a Leaf since it can only charge at 3.3kw per hour. So about $4 for 40 miles of range.

[paratwa]

Granted there's the cost of the charger and overhead lost in AC to DC, but am I right that that equates to about 60 cents of electricity (at 12 cent/KWh) costing $4?

[herm]

plus all the other expenses involved in setting up the facility, plus maintenance. In places where they are allowed to resell electricity they promise lower prices.

[xcel]

Hi Paratwa:

Yup. And even more so because who spends 90-minutes at the local Walgreens?

In my area, all the Walgreens are either standalone or in a small strip mall with few other outlets other than a Panara, pizza place, subway and a $ store as an example. I am simply leery of all of these charging station “programs” with the costs as high as they are. $4.00 for a 30-minute charge on average let alone the hassle of connecting and disconnecting a dirty cord to your car? I expect we will see a lot of 240 installs at home but to pay 6X’s the going rate is like paying $24 per gallon for gasoline because the gas station pump is at a Walgreens. Not quite the same but I think you know where I am going with this.

With 9-hours providing essentially a full charge in a Volt at 120V, I hope we stay with 120V charges at home overnight. Even at work, a 9-hour charge is sufficient (and that is if you drained it fully!) and costs < $1.00 for most in this country. It is best for the pack, best for the grid and best for our pocketbooks.

Wayne

[rfruth]

The Focus EV may not support L3 charging - this should be interesting

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I think they're hoping to take a cut of the savings from people using their "range confidence" to make longer journeys.

If maintenance is a problem for a charger that I don't think I'd want to use that charger anyway.

[xcel]

Hi All:

A quick update as the Walgreen Manager of the EV Charging Station program is a fellow usher who I spoke with at church this morning.

They have currently rolled out 266 of the 800 with a more aggressive schedule for the remaining 534 chargers. The 800 does not mean individual sites but total chargers with some locations receiving more than just one Level 2 or Level 3 in some cases.

The Charge is also free until March 1 when the main contractor and supplier, Coulomb Technologies will take over that actual payment end of the business. Walgreen’s is just a host for the program and since most of their locations are leased, they have limited say as to where the Charging stations are actually located within the parking lot(s) themselves. This also has to do with local city, country and state restrictions on parking lot amenities, power proximity and of course total costs.

They have completed installing most of the Northern California Walgreen’s charging stations with Southern California’s rollout schedule being pushed hard over the next 6-months.

All in a very interesting discussion and I am looking forward to hearing more that is publishable from said manager of the program over the coming weeks

Wayne