The Vulkan parking garage in Oslo, Norway, has the most EV chargers of any facility in the world — 102. Tesla has opened two large Supercharger stations in the US recently with up to 60 chargers each, but the Vulkan operation tops them both by a wide margin. Since it first opened early in 2016, the number of customers using its chargers has tripled.
To date, a total of 114,000 kWh have been fed into the batteries of the electric cars that use the Vulkan facility. The garage now distributes 6,000 kWh of electricity to electric cars every 7 days. That’s enough for 30,000 kilometers of driving, which keeps 3 tons of carbon emissions out to the atmosphere — every week.
At first, charging was free. But after an equipment upgrade mid-year, customers began paying for their electricity during the daytime. At first, the number of people using the chargers fell, but soon business picked up again and is now increasing rapidly.
“We saw a little fall in charging for the first two weeks after the payment system was introduced, but the numbers are already on the way up again. Electric cars can still charge for free at night and on weekends. Night parking for electric cars is now handled automatically, and users do not need to register with Easypark anymore,” says Isak Oksvold, environmental manager at Aspelin Ramm, the developer of the Vulkan parking garage.
He says there are now more business customers at the facility, including a cleaning company that uses a fleet of electric cars and two carsharing services with a total of four electric cars.
Thanks to a recently completed equipment upgrade, EV customers can choose chargers with 3.6 kW of power all the way up to 22 kW. They can also book a charging time in advance using a smartphone app, which makes charging more convenient. The success of the Vulkan EV parking garage means other developers are looking at opening similar facilities in Norway.
Source: cleantechnica.com
