Electric car charging station makes debut in Springs

Cars running on gasoline and diesel fuel no doubt will outnumber electric vehicles for years to come on Pikes Peak region roads.

For some, however, electric vehicles represent a vision for the future.

Nor’wood Development Group and Colorado Springs Utilities on Friday debuted what they say is southern Colorado’s first electric vehicle charging station — a bright green and silver power dispenser that’s been installed in front of the Cinemark movie theater complex at Nor’wood’s First & Main Town Center on the city’s east side.

The charging station — whose look harkens back to a traditional fuel pump — is part of a pilot program undertaken by Nor’wood, one of the Springs’ largest real estate developers, and Utilities. The two have split the cost of the $15,000 installation of the charging station, and Nor’wood will foot the bill over the next several months for the cost of the electricity dispensed by the charging station.

Electric vehicle owners can pull into one of two designated parking spaces next to the charging station, hook up their vehicles using one of its two 25-foot power cables and charge their car batteries for free.

The charging station will be available round-the-clock for owners of so-called Level II electric cars; the Chevrolet Volt, the Nissan Leaf and the Toyota Prius are among such vehicles that are Level II capable, Nor’wood says.

For Nor’wood, the charging station is a recognition of the emergence of electric vehicles as a potentially popular source of transportation in the future, even though nobody knows if they’ll ever dominate the market, said Fred Veitch, a Nor’wood vice president who oversees First & Main.

Veitch pitched the idea of the charging station to Utilities this summer, and planning started in August. First & Main is one of the area’s largest shopping areas, and has a variety of restaurants, stores and entertainment venues that attract thousands of consumers. It runs along Powers Boulevard’s east side, from North Carefree Circle to Constitution Avenue.

“If you came to an hour-and-a-half movie (at First & Main) and you went to a restaurant, you’d have enough time to charge your vehicle,” Veitch said. “So, for us, this just made sense to go ahead and put our toe in the water and try it out.”

Utilities, meanwhile, will glean critical data from the charging station and use it, along with other research, to determine future changes it might need to make to its electrical system to accommodate electric vehicle owners.

“We’re looking at when are people charging, what does that look like,” said John Romero, a Utilities’ general manager. “We’re more concerned really what that might do in a customer’s home. We don’t design the (power) system right now for this additional load to be in a customer’s house. So what we need to understand is how are people charging their electric vehicles, when are they charging them and do we need to upgrade the system in order to (serve them)?”

Romero said Utilities also will research what kinds of rates might be needed for such power uses. Should a special rate be put in place, for example, to serve as an incentive for owners to charge their electric vehicles at certain times of the day?

“We don’t necessarily prefer that a customer would come home at 5 o’clock and plug in their electric car and start charging because that’s when we’re hitting our peak,” Romero said.

Nor’wood is paying the cost of the power dispensed by the charging station, since it can’t legally re-sell the electricity it buys from Springs Utilities, Veitch said.

The service will be free to electric car owners for the next six months to a year as Nor’wood and Springs Utilities evaluate the use of the charging station. If the initial station gets a lot of use, it’s possible Nor’wood would consider adding more at its other developments in the area, Veitch said.

Assuming the charging station remains in place, users eventually would be charged for the power, Veitch said. Nor’wood and utility officials said the typical cost to fully charge  an electric vehicle is $3 to $4. How popular the charging station will be is anybody’s guess. Romero said Springs Utilities doesn’t yet have any hard numbers on how many electric vehicles are in the area, and Veitch said he doesn’t believe the station will trigger a wave of electric vehicle ownership.

“But I do think there are going to be cars out there, and the question is where are they going to go to get charged,” Veitch said earlier this week.

At Friday’s unveiling, a Chevrolet Volt from Al Serra Chevrolet-Volkswagen in Colorado Springs was plugged into the charging station to show how it worked. Darwin Bilberry, an Al Serra sales consultant, said the dealership has sold one Volt so far after receiving its first car a month ago, and was poised for another sale Friday.

“It’s an emerging market,” Bilberry said.

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