Union College Partners with EV Connect to Provide EV Charging for Faculty, Staff, and Students
As electric vehicle adoption soars and students across the country return to in-person learning, Union College, seeks to have their nine new (mid-2019) dual port EV charging stations around campus continue to be utilized by faculty, staff and student EV drivers.
About
Union College is one of the oldest private educational institutions in Schenectady, New York. Founded in 1795, it was one of the first schools to be chartered by the Board of Regents of the state of New York as well as having the first unified campus plan in America. Being one of the Top 50 Best Liberal Arts Colleges in the U.S. (U.S. News and World report) and with over 2,050 full-time undergraduates, Union’s rigorous academics provides their students opportunities to pursue their passion and inspires them to engage in with the local and global community, leading the College to become an early adopter (2007) of the American College and University President Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), forming a climate action plan and setting a goal of carbon neutrality by 2060.
The Challenge
As part of their climate action plan, Union College laid out different sustainable initiatives and objectives, which included installing a 2 dual port electric charging stations on campus in 2016. Because 2018 emissions from faculty, staff, and student commuting represented 10% of their overall carbon footprint (32% of Scope 3 emissions), Union planned to improve their EV charging infrastructure and encourage EV adoption hoping to reduce CO2 emissions.
“Among those objectives was fostering a community that pushes forward new ways of mobility,” said Josh Dranoff, Sustainability Coordinator, “that includes electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.”
However, because of the lack of charging stations available, many Union College faculty, staff, and student EV drivers found it difficult to find space to charge their electric vehicles, especially since people remained parked at the stations long after they finished charging.
To meet the growing demand for EV charging, the college turned to installing additional chargers on campus to put the brakes on that problem. This was spearheaded by the previous Sustainability Coordinator, Alex Lykins.
The Solution
After Union College finalized their decision for additional chargers, they also needed a reliable solution to guide them through the EV charging infrastructure process and chose to partner with EV Connect. By choosing EV Connect’s open management software platform, Josh can set up unique driver groups and easily monitor the stations, which are located across different parking lots within the campus.
“It’s a good relationship. There have been times where there will be connectivity issues that may come up that I don’t notice right away, and I’ll get an email notifying me that a station is down,” said Dranoff. “I appreciate that because we’re all so busy. Whenever we reach out to EV Connect about a specific issue we get a response in less than 24 hours.”
The EV Connect network enables Josh to see utilization, optimize station performance, and help the College meet federal and state reporting requirements for sustainability. In addition to their collaboration with EV Connect, Union College partnered with National Grid and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) Charge Ready NY program, to help finance the capital costs of infrastructure and installation through their respective incentive programs.
The Result
Since commissioning their stations in April 2019, Union college has added 9 dual port charging stations across the campus, bringing a total of 22 charging stations available for EV drivers. Furthermore, Drivers who want to use the charging stations must register their vehicles, accessing the stations through the EV Connect mobile app.
“I think we’re a kind of forward-thinking institution. A big barrier of buying electric vehicles is not having somewhere to charge it.” Says Dranoff, “So I think being able to complete that loop and install EV charging, incentivizes people to make the leap to EV adoption.” Since commissioning these additional stations, Union has had over 2000 charge sessions from 130 users, providing 48,000 eMiles and avoiding over 1,000 gallons of gasoline (10 mTCO2e)!
Ready to learn more about how EV Connect can help you power up your parking lot with EV charging like Union College? Contact us today!