Port Power

Menu
Family Laundry Press Conference Depot

City of Oakland Announces Port Power’s Family Laundry EV…

  • by PortPower

EV Charging System Provides Business Savings and Community Benefits

Published on November 07, 2025

Family Laundry Press Conference

Oakland, CA – Today, Oakland officials announced that Family Laundry, a family-owned business established in 2018 and one of the Bay Area’s leading wash-and-fold laundry pickup and delivery services, installed solar, batteries, and integrated electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure at their facility in Oakland’s San Antonio neighborhood. The site now has capacity for 17 electric vans to be charged using solar power.  

Partners supporting this $1M project included regional agencies Bay Area Air District and PG&E; community development finance organization Pacific Community Ventures; the LA Cleantech Incubator; and innovative technology provider Port Power. The chargers will be shared with Community Kitchens, which acquired an all-electric, refrigerated delivery van. 

This project advances the City of Oakland’s Equitable Climate Action Plan (ECAP) and Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Action Plan, which place local businesses, health, and environmental justice at the forefront of climate action.  

City staff recruited Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) to fund an extension of the project to Community Kitchens, an Oakland nonprofit tackling food insecurity. Community Kitchens will have access to chargers for their delivery vans, reducing their operational costs and improving reliability. The organization provides food to unhoused residents, healthy snacks and meals for OUSD and serves low-income youth, families, and seniors in neighborhoods where over half the people go to bed hungry. Community Kitchens vans drive all over the city to harness the power of food to change lives, uplift communities and protect the environment. Family Laundry’s “community access charger” used by Community Kitchens will remain a climate asset for Oakland’s San Antonio neighborhood. 

“This project represents the kind of innovative partnership Oakland needs to meet our climate goals. I want to thank Family Laundry and Port Power for making it a reality, particularly the decision to extend charging access to Community Kitchens. That choice demonstrates what Oakland is fundamentally about: ensuring that those most in need of investment are included in our climate transition. By reducing operational costs for organizations serving our most vulnerable residents, we enable them to expand the essential work our community depends on. This project proves that when Oakland’s businesses, nonprofits, and public agencies work together, a just transition to a green and equitable economy isn’t merely aspirational- it’s within reach,” said Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee.  

Investments in solar, batteries, and EV charging can save businesses money in the long term, helping them to thrive & stay rooted in Oakland. Family Laundry knew that switching from fossil fuels to clean, reliable electricity was the next step to keep their business thriving. They chose Port Power’s modular “Depot in a Box” that combines charging hardware, energy management software, and site automation into pre-integrated packages that can be deployed rapidly on an existing site. The Depot in a Box will support 17 charging ports with solar and battery storage—all built on modular infrastructure. The platform incorporates microgrid capabilities, enabling daytime solar collection to charge Family Laundry’s delivery vans overnight. Assets like these protect businesses from increasing energy and gas costs and ensure access to more reliable EVs. 

“Oakland’s landmark Equitable Climate Action Plan put us on a path to climate neutrality by 2045, eliminating fossil fuels in buildings by 2040, and leading with justice. The recently-adopted Economic Development Action Plan provides the roadmap to strengthen Oakland businesses and invest in climate-positive work that serves our community. Lasting climate and justice work can only happen with community and business leadership – and for that to happen robustly, we need investment and support. I want to thank the investors and funders who enabled this project, as well as Family Laundry, Community Kitchens, and Port Power for their vision, focus on the community, and commitment to equitable climate action,” said Shayna Hirshfield-Gold, Oakland’s Acting Sustainability Director.  

Business solutions like these address the economic and operational challenges that have historically made EV fleets accessible only to large companies. Port Power’s system enables any delivery fleet to go electric without the utility service upgrades that often add multi-year delays and extensive costs to fleet electrification. Family Laundry is not only expanding its capacity to serve more customers: they are setting an example for sustainable practices in the service industry. 

“It Only Makes Sense.” 

The new system has already helped Family Laundry expand operations while reducing their carbon footprint. Specifically, moving to electric delivery vans, powered by the sun, is helping them: 

  • reduce their ecological footprint by an estimated 8 metric tons of CO₂ annually per vehicle; 
  • save energy, with their cost per mile dropping from 40 cents per mile before electrifying, to 25 cents per mile with EVs on standard charging — soon to be 5 cents per mile with the new charging depot – an estimated annual savings of roughly $10,000 per vehicle! 
  • reduce operational costs, with thousands of dollars saved on maintenance per vehicle each year. 

Delivery businesses face a challenging landscape with increasing fuel costs. Combined global and local forces are expected to continue this trend into 2026. Cost reductions for businesses keeps goods and services moving, maintain jobs, and provide vital services to the public.  

Partnerships and Investment are Critical 

Collaborative investment made today’s project possible. Port Power provided technical assistance and design; critical grant funding came from the Bay Area Air District, LACI, and PG&E; and local finance organization, Pacific Community Ventures (PCV), made the largest investment from their Climate Resilience Fund. 

“PCV’s Climate Resilience Mobilization Fund envisions a future that centers the power and wealth-building potential of the climate economy within historically underestimated communities that have been denied access for too long. Our aim is to bridge the gap and empower small businesses to undertake projects they would otherwise be unable to pursue,” said Bulbul Gupta, CEO of PCV. Affordable, flexible loans are made available with the intent to position underserved small businesses to participate in the emerging climate economy, fostering job creation and wealth-building opportunities within diverse communities. 

Extending the Work 

City of Oakland Business License Application data finds 475 Medium Duty and Heavy Duty trucking fleets are registered Oakland businesses. Not included in this total are the many businesses, like Family Laundry, who own trucks and deliver their product as a core part of their operations. These fleets move furniture, haul equipment, and deliver thousands of commercial goods across healthcare, retail, food, construction, and other Oakland sites. Even with modern efficiency gains, diesel engines remain a major source of pollution in Oakland neighborhoods, contribute to climate-change, and require more ongoing maintenance than EVs. As fuel costs rise, a focus on sustainably electrifying delivery vans makes sense for business and the environment.  

Projects like these position Oakland as a regional leader in the climate economy and show that everyone has a role to play in a just climate transition.  

What they’re saying:  

As Family Laundry co-owner David Macquart-Moulin says, “Going electric it makes financial sense, otherwise we wouldn’t do it. We are saving drastic amounts of a lot of money now, but a project of this size this really felt impossible when we started. We relied on a lot of partners to help guide us through. Family Laundry is not only expanding its capacity to serve more customers but is also setting an example for sustainable practices in the service industry.” 

Nadav Gur from Port Power is encouraging: “it’s that guidance that helps these projects pencil out. We can help these businesses afford the investment and save money.  Business solutions like these address the economic and operational challenges that have historically made EV fleets accessible only to large companies. Port Power’s system enables any delivery fleet to go electric without the utility service upgrades that often add multi-year delays and extensive costs to fleet electrification.” 

PARTNER PROFILES 

Family Laundry 

Family Laundry, a family-owned business established in 2018, has been serving the Oakland community. Operating from three locations in Oakland’s San Antonio and Fruitvale neighborhoods, the company employs more than 30 people, including delivery drivers and laundry technicians. They use free and clear detergents only, and eliminated bleach, dryer sheets, and plastic bags from their delivery business. Family Laundry has expanded its operations by transitioning to a fully-electric delivery fleet, significantly enhancing their delivery services while reducing their carbon footprint.   The business currently operates six electric delivery vans, with plans to expand the fleet to fifteen vans within the next three years.  

Port Power 

Port Power specializes in integrated EV charging infrastructure for small and medium-sized fleet operators. Building a modular, expandable end-to-end service that aims to provide fleets the solution they need at the growth rate they require, creating long-term infrastructure for businesses and communities.  

Community Kitchens 

Community Kitchens’ free and accessible meal program supports Oakland’s most vulnerable community members. Their mission is to bring our whole community together to harness the power of food to change lives, uplift communities and protect our environment. The guiding principle is that access to food and the dignity of a hot meal is a human right. Core priorities are filling in the gaps in existing food security systems, pioneering accessibility, and promoting dignity and connection. Being founded in Oakland, their programs are conscious of the diverse needs of our community and the historic institutionalized discrimination and racism that have led to dramatic inequalities in our community today. 

Pacific Community Ventures 

Pacific Community Ventures is a non-profit community investor that unlocks economic opportunity and climate resilience for small business owners and workers. Through access to affordable capital, pro bono business advising, ethical technology and AI, we partner with entrepreneurs to grow, hire, and prosper. PCV makes affordable, flexible loans available with the intent to position underserved small businesses to participate in the emerging climate economy, enabling job creation and wealth-building opportunities within diverse communities. Programs empower clients to play a significant role in climate action in the communities they call home while ensuring that climate economy jobs remain sustainable and resilient. PCV launched the climate Justice Mobilization Fund which includes new lending products paired with technical assistance tailored for small businesses working to accelerate the climate transition. 

Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator  

Founded in 2011 as an outcome of a public-private partnership with the City of Los Angeles and its Department of Water & Power (LADWP), the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), is focused on clean energy, zero emissions transportation, and sustainable cities. Our mission is to create an inclusive green economy by unlocking innovation, transforming markets, and enhancing communities. LACI aims to build a regional innovation ecosystem that supports the discovery and commercialization of clean technologies by creating new companies, derisking the go-to-market process, and helping companies successfully deliver market-ready cleantech solutions along with accompanying jobs in Southern California and beyond.  

Bay Area Air District 

In January 2025, the Bay Area Air District awarded Family Laundry a grant to install two DC fast charging ports and 15 Level 2 ports with supporting infrastructure. The California Legislature created the Air District in 1955 as the first regional air pollution control agency in the country.  The Air District is tasked with regulating stationary sources of air pollution in the nine counties that surround San Francisco Bay: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, southwestern Solano, and southern Sonoma counties.  It is governed by a 24-member Board of Directors composed of locally elected officials from each of the nine Bay Area counties, with the number of board members from each county being proportionate to its population. 

PG&E 

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, incorporated in California in 1905, is one of the largest utility companies in the United States. Based in Oakland, the company is part of PG&E Corporation. 

…Originally published by the City of Oakland at: https://www.oaklandca.gov/News-Releases/EV-Charging-System-Provides-Business-Savings-and-Community-Benefits

Family Laundry e-Transit Uncategorized

Pre-announcing: EV Depot Launch With Mayor Lee

  • by PortPower

Family Laundry Depot Launch Press Conference This Friday 7/11/2025

Reminder: The Family Laundry Depot Project Announcement

This weekend, we celebrate the official launch of the Family Laundry EV charging hub—a first-of-its-kind, modular, managed charging site designed to support small electric delivery fleets in Oakland and beyond.

We’re honored to have Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee christen the site, and host with representatives from the organizations that helped bring this project to life, including the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) and Pacific Community Ventures, whose funding and support have been instrumental.

At its core, this project is built to serve Family Laundry, a local, community-rooted business offering wash-and-fold laundry pickup and delivery across the Bay Area. With a current fleet of seven Ford e-Transit electric vans—and plans to more than double in size—the company needed a robust, scalable solution to keep its operations fully electric and future-ready.

The site features 15 Level 2 AC chargers and a dual-port Level 3 DC fast charger, all orchestrated by Port Power’s intelligent energy and fleet management platform. This software-driven infrastructure ensures that vehicles charge efficiently based on real-time needs, schedules, and available energy. The site will also include 50 kW of solar power and 233 kWh of battery energy storage (BESS), reducing energy cost and grid impact.

But the impact doesn’t stop with one fleet. The hub is designed as a shared resource for multiple small fleets, helping address the acute shortage of reliable park-and-charge space in Oakland. We’re excited to announce that Community Kitchens Oakland, a nonprofit addressing food insecurity through job creation and meal delivery, will begin operating their own electric fleet from the site as a tenant—further demonstrating the intersection of clean mobility and social impact.

Nadav Gur, founder of Port Power, will be leading a tour of the site and demonstrating how smart charging, modular design, and thoughtful energy management can empower small businesses and nonprofits to go electric—without the burden of navigating complex infrastructure alone.

This project isn’t just about vehicles or hardware. It’s about showing that clean transportation can be accessible, local, and equitable—and that small fleets can lead the way in building a zero-emissions future, right from the community up.

We hope this site becomes a blueprint for how cities can scale fleet electrification in a way that works for everyone—not just the largest players.

Come celebrate with us in Oakland this weekend. See the technology, meet the people, and witness what the future of clean urban logistics looks like.

Uncategorized

EV Charging Is The Next WiFi

Twenty five years ago, almost none of us knew what WiFi was. It wasn’t even called WiFi. When you stayed at a hotel, you weren’t looking for it, you weren’t expecting to get it, it wasn’t an issue.

About fifteen years ago, it became a critical amenity for business travelers, and a new profit center for hotels. If your WiFi wasn’t good – business travelers wouldn’t stay with you. If it was, you could charge more.

Nowadays – it’s just table stakes. You can’t operate a hotel, a convention center or a mall and not provide reliable WiFi.

In a few years – EV charging is going to be just like WiFi.

Most hotel guests in America get to their destination by car. Many of those who fly in, rent a car and expect to be able to park it at the hotel. As a hotelier, parking may be an amenity or a profit center, but you have to have it.

Today, those cars stop somewhere at a gas station to refuel. But EV charging takes a long time and public stations are slow and hard to come by. When guests are at home, they normally charge right in their garage. It is easy, they don’t need to look for it, it doesn’t take time (literally “refuel while you sleep!”) and the car is just ready to go in the morning. Guess what – that’s what they want to do when they are traveling too. No one wants to go looking for an EV charger and then wait next to it while they are traveling. If you can do it while you’re sleeping at your hotel – it saves you time, effort and stress – and you are happy to pay for it.

EV drivers want to charge at night, in their hotel’s parking.

Now let’s look at what’s happening in the EV market. Despite what some lobbyists want you to believe, EVs are here, they are here to stay, and they are replacing gas cars. Whether you believe the federal government, California or Goldman Sachs – the price and utility of owning an EV or close to or even cheaper than gas vehicles already and is dropping. And as governments both incentivize EVs and regulate against gas vehicles, this trend is now inevitable.

What does it mean? Look at your parking lot. Count the cars. Now imagine that 30, 50, 90% of them are electric, and that all of these guests want to charge their cars while parked in your parking lot. Because they are there already, because they are paying you already, and because it’s what they are used to at home. It’s a big opportunity for hotel owners. Instead of spending money at a gas station (or a public charging network), these guests are willing to spend money with you. Build a good experience for them, and they will pay.

Most cars in YOUR parking lot will be EVs in the next decade – and want to pay YOU for energy.

The problem is implementing this. EV charging takes lots of power. What we call “slow charging” today – Level 2 charging, takes as much power per charger as do several single family homes. Level 3 charging, also known as fast charging – as much as dozens or hundreds of homes. Multiply this by the number of guests’ cars, and the power and energy requirements are way above what your hotel’s spare capacity is today – and getting significantly more from the utility could take many years. Now, this sounds complicated, and what many hoteliers have done is simply say “this is way over our head. Can we get Tesla or a Chargepoint or someone like that just do it”?

Stay in control – Don’t hand this off to a charging network.

Letting a charging network like Tesla or EVgo do it means you are giving away both the guest experience and most of the financial opportunity in this amenity. On top of that, you are actually picking an imperfect solution on both the energy and the guest experience side.

The power your hotel gets from the utility, and the power you have an opportunity in generating, for instance by having solar panels on your roof – it comes to you. Getting more power, is getting more power to your property, and it affects your building’s value regardless of the EV charging aspects. It is something you want to be in control of, and optimize for your overall electricity needs. If Tesla or Chargepoint or one of their competitors ends up controlling your utility hookup – you’ve essentially given away a critical piece of your real estate value.

Now let’s think about your guests. What your guests need is very different than what Tesla or the public charging networks provide. Guests want to park when they get in, connect, and leave in the morning with a full battery. They don’t want to download a 3rd party app and put in a credit card number – they already have a billing relationship with you. They want to be automatically identified as they check in, billed on their guest bill, and get some benefits if they are loyalty program members – in short, feel like welcome hotel guests, not gas-station customers. The guests don’t need the car ready in an hour or two, and definitely don’t want to come out of the room to move their car off of a charger to free it up for another guest. They want charging where they’re parked, for as long as they are there. You’re not telling them to leave the room in the middle of the night cause someone else needs the bathroom. Why should the parking space be any different?

Guests want to feel like welcome hotel guests, not gas-station customers

What you need is a system that provides as many chargers as possible. These chargers don’t need to be very fast – you typically have a whole night to charge a battery that is maybe half-full to begin with. And the guest experience needs to be perfect – as a car pulls in, you want to identify the guest, and just say, “Hey Mrs. Jones, we see you, we will charge your car, enjoy your evening.” So chargers need to be connected to your guest reservation system so it can identify license plates or guest apps and close the loop.

Electrically – you need a system that manages power in a very different way than public charging works. Such a system looks at your electric infrastructure and your power sources, it looks at what your hotel is using for lighting and HVAC at every moment – and it rations the remaining energy to all the chargers in a way that enables running many chargers, concurrently, and slowly. You also want it to optimize the source of that energy – so it costs you the least, and makes you the most money. You want to put solar on your roof – because that’s practically free energy, and you may also want energy storage (batteries, essentially) in order to take the solar energy you collect during the day to use it at night. And then you want a system that takes all these resources and automatically uses them in a way that creates the best experience for your guests, and the highest return on your investment.

Did we say investment? Many funders in the market will be more than willing to pick up the tab – with no CAPEX to you, in exchange for a share of the long-term profits.

At Port Power, we call this Intelligently Managed Charging and Energy – an intelligent system that looks at the cars, chargers and energy at once and optimizes the needs and the resources.

Intelligent managed charging improves the guest experience and makes hotels money.

Uncategorized

How to make your April 1st ACF reporting deadline

One of the first deadlines for California fleets to comply with the Advanced Clean Fleets law is coming up – by April 1st, 2024, nearly all* municipal, county and state fleets need to register and submit their first reports to CARB. If you are a state, county or local government fleet – this guide is for you.

If you are a drayage fleet, or a high priority or federal fleet, you should have already reported to CARB.

This is a “quick start” guide to what reporting by April 1st requires. For full, detailed guidance, you can watch the series of webinars on ACF reporting from CARB. We recommend starting here – a 2 hour Q&A session from March that is among the more condensed guides from CARB.

* If your fleet does not own, lease, nor contract to any third party fleets using vehicles over 8,500 lbs, then you may not be subject to ACF, and you may not need to meet the April 1st filing.

1 – Log into TRUCRS portal and update your fleet profile

If you are a public fleet in California, chances are that you’ve filed reports of some sort to CARB via the TRUCRS portal before.

If your fleet has had to comply with common CARB rules in the last decade like Truck & Bus regulations, Airport Shuttle regulations, or Solid Waste & Heavy Crane regulations, you will have used TRUCRS before. Log in here.

Some small agencies may not have used TRUCRS before. Create a TRUCRS account using the guidelines from CARB here.

Before continuing to the next steps, make sure your fleet profile is updated to include every vehicle in your fleet and the updated odometer or hubodometer reading, and the other fields the TRUCRS forms require.

Important: you may have already included vehicles subject to older CARB regulations such as buses or heavy equipment in your TRUCRS profile. However, starting April 1st, many vehicles in your fleet (including smaller cars that aren’t directly subject to the ACF) may need be logged and tracked in TRUCRS. If you continue on the default reporting (Model Year – see more in the next section), then you only need to register vehicles over 8,500 GVWR. However, if you elect to use the Milestone Option (again, see more in the next section), then you also must also register some types of vehicles that fall under 8,500 GVWR.

For large fleets, you can update TRUCRS in bulk using their Large Fleet Upload spreadsheet.

It’s important to note that some new fields of vehicle information have been added to TRUCRS as part of CARB’s new ACF reporting. In the TRUCRS portal where you can add a new vehicle or edit an existing one, you must fill out these new fields:

If you have already begun to replace an ICE vehicle with an EV, or if you have converted an ICE to an EV, then you need to identify the vehicles that have been replaced or converted for them to count towards this year’s compliance schedule. If you are already replacing vehicles under ACF, then we recommend you watch the full series of CARB TRUCRS ACF reporting guideline webinar – this Q&A from March 5th is particularly useful.

2 – Selecting your compliance schedule – Model Year or Milestone

One important step in your reporting is to select one of two compliance pathways that you would like to apply to your fleet. If you don’t select a pathway, your fleet will automatically subscribe to the ZEV Purchase Schedule, also known as the “model year schedule.”

This is an important point. For many fleets the default Model Year Schedule is going to be a more aggressive transition schedule.

The alternative option for your compliance pathway is called the ZEV Milestone Option, which may be more flexible for many types of fleets. You can read more about the details of the two options here.

Note: switching to the ZEV Milestone Option is a one-way door. You cannot return to the Model year Schedule once you opt into the Milestone Option.

To select a pathway, go to your “Company Info” tab in the TRUCRS portal. At the bottom of this page is the “Regulations your fleet is subject to” section. Here, you can opt into the Milestone Option.

3 – Applying for extensions and exemptions

Another important step is to apply for extensions and exemptions. To do this, email TRUCRS@arb.ca.gov and include your TRUCRS ID # in the email correspondence.

4 – Getting your compliance status certificate

After making all your fleet profile updates and adding or editing all your vehicles, you can get your compliance certificate.

Access the “Compliance Status” tab of your account. If you’ve entered all the information correctly, you should see a green note at the bottom of the screen saying “Fleet is in Compliance with Advanced Clean Fleets”.

So long as you see only green messages in this section, you should be able to print your compliance status certificate from that menu.

Reach out to Port Power to discuss your EV transition

Port Power was founded to make going EV as easy as operating diesel.

Whether you are a fleet operator buying your first EV trucks or a city administrator tasked with figuring out your plan, reach out to schedule a consultation with the team at Port Power for help with:

  • Getting the full range of options you have to manage this transition
  • Having a soup-to-nuts, managed solution for all your fleet charging and operations needs
  • Visibility into grant and funding opportunities to help you with this transition

Get in touch with us today: https://portpower.us/contact/

 

Uncategorized

Government Fleets: How to Know if the ACF Impacts…

The ACF is here… compliance for your government fleet starts today.

In April 2023, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved the Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule. It requires fleets to transition to zero emissions vehicles (ZEVs, such as EVs) and is changing everything about how fleets operate.

First and foremost, fleet managers must understand when the ACF will apply to them. For government fleets, the ACF impacts them today.

If you operate a government fleet in California, the ACF applies now and CARB requires you take action today.

This is the first in a series of short posts helping government fleet managers figure out what they need to do. Complying with the ACF is a big undertaking – but one you can manage if you take action today alongside the right experts.

So: does the ACF impact your fleet?

The ACF casts a wide net — nearly every city, county, state and federal fleet operating in California is impacted starting January 2024.

  • City, county, state fleets: if you make use of any vehicles over 8,500 lbs GVWR, the ACF applies to you.
  • Rent or hire – it still counts: even if you only rely on vehicles over 8,500 lbs temporarily through vehicles-for-hire or by dispatching work via a freight broker, it counts.
  • Federal fleets: all federal fleets operating in CA are affected this year. Your class 2b-8, yard tractors, and light-duty delivery vehicles are impacted.

Do you use any vehicles over 8,500 lbs? Then your reporting deadline is April 1st 2024.

Are there exceptions?

  • Transit agencies: if you’re already complying with ICT regulations for bus electrification, then ACF requirements only begin applying to your maintenance & support trucks in 2030. Basically, CARB wants to avoid distracting you from getting bus electrification finished.
  • Waste utilities: if your fleet is exclusively fueled by Compressed Natural Gas or Bio-Methane, you are generally exempt from compliance until 2027 or 2030.
  • Small population counties: Agencies who (1) operate fewer than 10 trucks AND (2) are located in a low population county in the map below are exempt from ACF compliance until 2027.

The bottom line: Most government fleets need to start purchasing and operating ZEV vehicles this year.

This means you need to plan your transition, and understand starting now how you will manage all your reporting to CARB.

Two ways to comply

 

Path 1 is straightforward, but difficult. This is the default path unless you elect for path 2 by April 1st, 2024. To learn how to elect for path 2 in time contact us.

  • 50% of fleet purchases must be ZEV or NZEV each year in 2024-2026
  • 100% of fleet purchases must be ZEV by 2027
  • For federal fleets all newly added trucks must be ZEV starting 2024

Path 2 gives you some breathing room to figure out procurement, charging, and operations.

  • Convert a portion of your fleet to ZEVs each year.
  • 10% by 2025, 25% by 2028, 100% by 2035.
  • Extensions and purchase exemptions available.
  • Allows for compliant fleets with electrifying light duty vehicles – the easiest to manage.

What does this mean for you?

Compliance is a two pronged process: electrifying your fleet and reporting to CARB.

Fleet electrification is hard, we can help you:

  • Evaluate sites
  • Decide what vehicles to electrify first
  • Buy and lease ZEVs
  • Build charging
  • Work with utilities
  • Coordinate EV operations
  • Apply for incentives and grants like Make Ready

Reporting is time consuming, we can help you:

  • File and submit initial reporting by April 1st
  • Verify fleet compliance through TRUCRS
  • Purchasing and odometer reporting
  • Annual record keeping and reporting
  • Apply for special exemptions and extensions

 

Port Power makes EV as easy as diesel

Port Power was founded by EV industry veterans to solve this exact problem. We are a full solution provider that partners with fleet operators and their real estate partners to solve the charging problem today and scale it to handle all future needs.

Whether you are a fleet operator buying your first EV trucks or a city administrator tasked with figuring out your plan, reach out to schedule a consultation with the team at Port Power for help with:

  • Clearly understanding the transition timelines that apply to your business
  • Getting the full range of options you have to manage this transition
  • Having a soup-to-nuts, managed solution for all your charging needs
  • Getting the government incentives your business deserves without the headache of manual reporting

Get in touch with us today: https://portpower.us/contact/

 

Uncategorized

EV Charging Is The Next WiFi

  • by PortPower

Twenty five years ago, almost none of us knew what WiFi was. It wasn’t even called WiFi. When you stayed at a hotel, you weren’t looking for it, you weren’t expecting to get it, it wasn’t an issue.

About fifteen years ago, it became a critical amenity for business travelers, and a new profit center for hotels. If your WiFi wasn’t good – business travelers wouldn’t stay with you. If it was, you could charge more.

Nowadays – it’s just table stakes. You can’t operate a hotel, a convention center or a mall and not provide reliable WiFi.

In a few years – EV charging is going to be just like WiFi.

Most hotel guests in America get to their destination by car. Many of those who fly in, rent a car and expect to be able to park it at the hotel. As a hotelier, parking may be an amenity or a profit center, but you have to have it.

Today, those cars stop somewhere at a gas station to refuel. But EV charging takes a long time and public stations are slow and hard to come by. When guests are at home, they normally charge right in their garage. It is easy, they don’t need to look for it, it doesn’t take time (literally “refuel while you sleep!”) and the car is just ready to go in the morning. Guess what – that’s what they want to do when they are traveling too. No one wants to go looking for an EV charger and then wait next to it while they are traveling. If you can do it while you’re sleeping at your hotel – it saves you time, effort and stress – and you are happy to pay for it.

EV drivers want to charge at night, in their hotel’s parking.

Now let’s look at what’s happening in the EV market. Despite what some lobbyists want you to believe, EVs are here, they are here to stay, and they are replacing gas cars. Whether you believe the federal government, California or Goldman Sachs – the price and utility of owning an EV or close to or even cheaper than gas vehicles already and is dropping. And as governments both incentivize EVs and regulate against gas vehicles, this trend is now inevitable.

What does it mean? Look at your parking lot. Count the cars. Now imagine that 30, 50, 90% of them are electric, and that all of these guests want to charge their cars while parked in your parking lot. Because they are there already, because they are paying you already, and because it’s what they are used to at home. It’s a big opportunity for hotel owners. Instead of spending money at a gas station (or a public charging network), these guests are willing to spend money with you. Build a good experience for them, and they will pay.

Most cars in YOUR parking lot will be EVs in the next decade – and want to pay YOU for energy.

The problem is implementing this. EV charging takes lots of power. What we call “slow charging” today – Level 2 charging, takes as much power per charger as do several single family homes. Level 3 charging, also known as fast charging – as much as dozens or hundreds of homes. Multiply this by the number of guests’ cars, and the power and energy requirements are way above what your hotel’s spare capacity is today – and getting significantly more from the utility could take many years. Now, this sounds complicated, and what many hoteliers have done is simply say “this is way over our head. Can we get Tesla or a Chargepoint or someone like that just do it”?

Stay in control – Don’t hand this off to a charging network.

Letting a charging network like Tesla or EVgo do it means you are giving away both the guest experience and most of the financial opportunity in this amenity. On top of that, you are actually picking an imperfect solution on both the energy and the guest experience side.

The power your hotel gets from the utility, and the power you have an opportunity in generating, for instance by having solar panels on your roof – it comes to you. Getting more power, is getting more power to your property, and it affects your building’s value regardless of the EV charging aspects. It is something you want to be in control of, and optimize for your overall electricity needs. If Tesla or Chargepoint or one of their competitors ends up controlling your utility hookup – you’ve essentially given away a critical piece of your real estate value.

Now let’s think about your guests. What your guests need is very different than what Tesla or the public charging networks provide. Guests want to park when they get in, connect, and leave in the morning with a full battery. They don’t want to download a 3rd party app and put in a credit card number – they already have a billing relationship with you. They want to be automatically identified as they check in, billed on their guest bill, and get some benefits if they are loyalty program members – in short, feel like welcome hotel guests, not gas-station customers. The guests don’t need the car ready in an hour or two, and definitely don’t want to come out of the room to move their car off of a charger to free it up for another guest. They want charging where they’re parked, for as long as they are there. You’re not telling them to leave the room in the middle of the night cause someone else needs the bathroom. Why should the parking space be any different?

Guests want to feel like welcome hotel guests, not gas-station customers

What you need is a system that provides as many chargers as possible. These chargers don’t need to be very fast – you typically have a whole night to charge a battery that is maybe half-full to begin with. And the guest experience needs to be perfect – as a car pulls in, you want to identify the guest, and just say, “Hey Mrs. Jones, we see you, we will charge your car, enjoy your evening.” So chargers need to be connected to your guest reservation system so it can identify license plates or guest apps and close the loop.

Electrically – you need a system that manages power in a very different way than public charging works. Such a system looks at your electric infrastructure and your power sources, it looks at what your hotel is using for lighting and HVAC at every moment – and it rations the remaining energy to all the chargers in a way that enables running many chargers, concurrently, and slowly. You also want it to optimize the source of that energy – so it costs you the least, and makes you the most money. You want to put solar on your roof – because that’s practically free energy, and you may also want energy storage (batteries, essentially) in order to take the solar energy you collect during the day to use it at night. And then you want a system that takes all these resources and automatically uses them in a way that creates the best experience for your guests, and the highest return on your investment.

Did we say investment? Many funders in the market will be more than willing to pick up the tab – with no CAPEX to you, in exchange for a share of the long-term profits.

At Port Power, we call this Intelligently Managed Charging and Energy – an intelligent system that looks at the cars, chargers and energy at once and optimizes the needs and the resources.

Intelligent managed charging improves the guest experience and makes hotels money.

Uncategorized

Three things to know about fleet EV charging

  • by PortPower

I shared three must-know issues about fleets’ challenges in the transition to EV with a popular tech & business show, the Village Global Podcast. 

 

Why it matters: Too few decision makers in tech, business, and regulation understand the challenges that commercial fleets face with EVs.

  • Conventional thinking is that “it’s a no brainer with lower TCO”
  • But that overlooks the massive investment required in charging & operations changes

 

Issue 1 – Fleet & energy schedules must connect: Energy has always been a cost center for fleets. But with electrification, it is now an operational & scheduling issue.

  • Since charging takes 45 minutes minimum, without a carefully-planned charge schedule, drivers may be sitting idle much of the day.
  • Congestion at charging facilities is getting far worse, making opportunistic fast-charges dangerously unreliable without scheduled slots.

 

Issue 2 – “A Tesla Supercharger in every backyard”: The core solution is for fleets to build their own on-site charging infrastructure. That’s no small feat.

  • EV pilots are easy – you can keep EVs on light missions, and rely on your existing facility’s plugs to slow charge.
  • But you hit 10% EV, the script flips.
  • Charging dozens of cars takes enormous power – even if you’re slow charging most of them. Add a few DCFC, and you’re in Supercharger territory.

 

Issue 3 – The grid isn’t ready: Fleets face years-long waits to get enough power for even a fraction of their overall fleet charging needs. 

  • Again, small pilots are easy – with only a few cars, your existing grid connect works fine
  • But when you need to scale, suddenly you can’t
  • The solution: solar, stationary battery storage, and generators

 

Port Power makes EV as easy as diesel

Port Power was founded by EV industry veterans to solve this exact problem. We are a full solution provider that partners with fleet operators and their real estate partners to solve the charging problem today and scale it to handle all future needs.

Whether you are a fleet operator buying your first EV trucks or a city administrator tasked with figuring out your plan, reach out to schedule a consultation with the team at Port Power for help with:

  • Clearly understanding the transition timelines that apply to your business
  • Getting the full range of options you have to manage this transition
  • Having a soup-to-nuts, managed solution for all your charging needs
  • Getting the government incentives your business deserves without the headache of manual reporting

Get in touch with us today: https://portpower.us/contact/

A big thanks to the team at Village Global for hosting this conversation, which you can find on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts. The show’s host Olga Serhiyevich is a pro at deep-dives into industry, so the clips above are summarized clips from key segments.

Fleet of vehicles for the department of public works Uncategorized

What ACF rules mean for your municipal fleet

The move to zero emissions is one of the most important and complex changes that city and county fleet managers have had to tackle in generations.

A wave of state and federal support makes this change achievable. And vehicles and charging equipment are finally proving to be suitable to handle the job. Now, it’s on fleet managers to take action.

Here’s a quick guide on what to know if you’re a city, county, or affiliated fleet evaluating your next steps.

Most fleets need to act now

Ever since California mandated transit agencies purchase only zero emissions buses starting in 2029, municipal fleets of all sorts have been waiting to see what would come their way.

As of 2023, they have their answer. Through this year’s ACF regulations, all varieties of municipal fleets must have 50% of new vehicle purchases be zero emissions in 2024. And by 2027, all new vehicles purchased must be zero emissions.

With average municipal fleet replacement cycles hovering around 8 to 15%, this means that even smaller entities will be taking receipt of a dozen electric cars and trucks sometime within the next year.

Fleet of vehicles for the department of public works

The challenge is charging & operations

The good news is that between the F-150 Lightning, the Silverado EV, the Transit EV, and smaller vehicles like the Chevy Bolt, Mustang Mach-E and others, there are finally a lot of EV options that are affordable for government fleets. And with EV maintenance being far easier than ICE, your future fleet will be easier to maintain and longer-lasting.

The flipside is that keeping these vehicles charged up and ready to perform is no small feat. It’s not uncommon to hear of cities purchasing 1.2 or even 1.5 EVs for every traditional vehicle they are replacing, just because of the challenges in keeping the EVs charged and running to meet all the missions.

In some cases, this is justified – you just can’t refuel enough EVs fast enough to have them replace your gas or diesel trucks 1:1.

But in many cases, being a little smarter about how you manage charging and fleet operations can make this transition a lot less complex.

Operational excellence looks very different for EVs than it does for traditional vehicles. Having smart integration between your EVs, your charging depots, and your energy resources can be the difference between an affordable, smooth transition and an expensive or bumpy one.

One city in California that has taken a progressive approach towards building a smart solution is Laguna Beach. Laguna Beach’s director of transit and community services told the LA Times recently “obviously, you can go and buy an electric vehicle fairly easily, but the important thing is to have the charging infrastructure and the electric grid infrastructure backing it up, so that you’re able to effectively operate those vehicles and ensure that they’re able to be charged in the places they need to be charged.”

Without designing a system that fully integrates the vehicles, fleet operations & schedules, your charging infrastructure and the electrical resources you have available, even modest sized fleets will quickly run into problems.

Litschi added: “I’m very familiar with a lot of [municipal] agencies who have gone down that road and have dozens of buses parked that they can’t use because they have no way to charge them.”

Laguna Beach FD truck sits ready to respond to missions
Laguna Beach is one of the California cities that has recently taken control of its fleet electrification with a comprehensive plan that includes managing its own EV charging depots

Below are the two KEY questions you need to answer on the way to your fleet transition.

The “happy path” for municipal fleet charging

When a user manages to achieve their goals with basically no disruptions, product designers call that the Happy Path. Let’s look at what the happy path would look like for a hypothetical city in California – San BernDiego.

Decision 1: to build or not?

In all but the largest and most complex gas and diesel fleets, most refueling happens at the same fuel stations that are used by the general public. And it’s easy! Municipal drivers are given fuel cards, and they are able to fill up whenever they need at stations that are pretty widely available. Refueling today is so quick it doesn’t really factor into general fleet readiness or operational scheduling.

But because charging takes a long time, fleets need to treat public charging facilities as a backup, and instead invest in their own, dedicated charging infrastructure in their fleet’s parking lots.

The Challenged Road: In one scenario, San BernDiego might have waited to take receipt of the first vehicles to begin trialing the use of some well located public charging infrastructure before deciding if it needed to build its own. But in this scenario, they would have found their employees wasting time sitting at charging stops for upwards of two hours. And when the stations were full with public users, some city EVs weren’t reporting ready for the job.

The Happy Path: But San BernDiego built charging on its own municipal fleet parking lots to ensure that he could charge his vehicles when they were already parked and sitting idle, for the most part overnight. This ensures that the vehicles would almost always be charged and ready to go for the standard duty cycles.

Aerial shot of a fleet of municipal parks & recs vans outside of a park with a city worker mowing grass
The easiest vehicles to start electrifying in your overall city or county fleet will be sedans and light duty trucks – including the trucks & vans used by parks & rec departments.

Decision 2: to manage or not?

Filling up with gas was always a cost driver, but rarely an operational consideration. Electricity is the opposite: affordable, but operationally complex. And ultimately, saving a few dollars on gas doesn’t matter if your fleet operations grind to a halt.

It is likely that your parking lot might not have access to enough power to charge more than a few vehicles at a time. Also consider that most charging is going to take hours. Suddenly, if you have three or four vehicles coming back at the same time to charge, you have to decide which one to charge first. Sure, the “easy” solution is to get the utility to give you enough power to charge everyone at once. But you will likely have to wait years, pay a high price for grid upgrades and be susceptible to utility outages that are getting more and more common in California. This is why managing schedules and responding to events in real time is going to be a core part of running charging depots!

Even if the charge scheduling might seem simple initially, extrapolate it across dozens of vehicles and chargers and you’ll understand that managing the constraints around energy, charging speed, and charging spaces is complex – and critical to ensuring your fleet works.

The Challenged Road: In one scenario, San BernDiego might have simply installed the fastest charger they could afford with the goal of keeping congestion to a minimum. But when the grid upgrade to free up space for the next few chargers came back at 18 months, they faced a dilemma: while it charged vehicles in just 40 minutes, having a whole row of EVs charged overnight required someone to cycle the cars one by one. So the “most powerful” solution wasn’t actually the right one!

The Happy Path: San BernDiego didn’t do this. Instead, it constructed a series of lower-power chargers alongside a mid-range fast charger. While they don’t have the power to run all simultaneously, the fast charger can be used for opportunistic top-ups when a new mission comes out of the blue, while the row of slower chargers can run altogether overnight to charge up many vehicles ahead of the morning shift. Managing how all of these are timed is handled with almost no staff input – charging operations management software gives their drivers clear instructions as to when and where to plug cars in.

Bonus: how smart management can help your fleet shine

Managing complexity to keep your fleet running requires new tools – but, as in much of life, tackling these challenges might not necessarily win you any awards.

But EVs offer your fleet a chance to really shine. With the right systems in place, your fleet can begin bringing incentive cash flow to your municipal organization, or even become a cornerstone of your city and county’s resilience infrastructure.

The Challenged Road: In one scenario, San BernDiego managed its chargers manually. In the event of a power outage across the city, requests to draw power from either their stationary backup system or the batteries in their cars fell to the coordination of their staff – which meant it couldn’t be done in real time and wasn’t eligible for subsidies from the State or Federal government for resilience resourcing. And to claim LCFS credits from California, the accounting department was tasked with many hours of manual work reviewing metering & bills.

The Happy Path: But San BernDiego used charging operations management software to run their depots and fleets. This software automated the whole process making energy accessible for resilience purposes. It also cut down on standard overhead like reporting to get LCFS credits!

Street sweeper
Eventually, all vehicles in your fleet will have to transition to electric. Some, such as street sweepers, are available already. The challenge is just setting up the charging depots to ensure you keep them up and running.

Port Power makes EV as easy as diesel

Port Power was founded by EV industry veterans to solve this exact problem. We are a full solution provider that partners with fleet operators and their real estate partners to solve the charging problem today and scale it to handle all future needs.

Unlike the EV charging infrastructure help that might come from an OEM, a charge point operator, or your local utility, Port Power is an independent player responsive to the specific needs of your fleet.

Unlike consulting firms and electrical contractors, Port was founded around a set of proprietary technologies that allow us to deliver solutions that are truly hassle-free and capable of scaling up in an economical way as your fleet adopts more EVs.

Whether you are a fleet operator buying your first EV trucks or a city administrator tasked with figuring out your plan, reach out to schedule a consultation with the team at Port Power for help with:

  • Clearly understanding the transition timelines that apply to your business
  • Getting the full range of options you have to manage this transition
  • Having a soup-to-nuts, managed solution for all your charging needs
  • Getting the government incentives your business deserves without the headache of manual reporting

Get in touch with us today: https://portpower.us/contact/

Coca Cola distributor in Ocala Florida Uncategorized

What EVs mean for F&B distribution fleets

Food and beverage distributors are a pillar of the restaurant and grocery retail industry – and today they’re some of the businesses most impacted by environmental regulations like California’s ACF rules (the law of the land that requires many distribution fleets to transition to EV now). While green credentials has been nice marketing for a while, adopting electric vehicles is quickly becoming a mandate, not a nice-to-have.

The bright side of this change is that light and medium duty EVs are finally becoming widely available – and affordable, too. The F&B distributor’s biggest challenge is actually different: keeping these vehicles charged without interrupting their missions, and without needing to hire new depot operations managers.

Lessons from the US’s largest food distribution center

The Food Distribution Center in Hunts Point of the Bronx is the largest of its kind in the US, with a massive fresh produce terminal, fish market, and warehouses for everyone from nationals like Dairyland to regional family-owned distributors like Katzman’s. Literally tens of thousands of restaurants, grocers, and corner stores are stocked weekly by fleets based in and around this distribution center.

You might be surprised to know that a comprehensive survey of the fleet operators here showed their distribution routes were hands-down achievable with the EVs available today from Mitsubishi Fuso, Daimler Trucks and others. In fact, in the case of Hunts Point, the average delivery route was under 60 miles – compare that to the eCanter’s 80 to 200 mile range options. Furthermore, while EV trucks remain more expensive, government incentives covered over 90% of the cost difference for the fleets who upgraded to electric, and the cost savings on fuel and maintenance easily make electric trucks more cost effective for most fleets. That’s why several fleets at Hunts Point have already begun adopting electric trucks on many of their routes. So where’s the rub?

The lack of charging infrastructure is proving to be the biggest challenge slowing fleet managers trying to integrate EVs.

While EVs get the job done just like diesel trucks, fueling them is quite different.

First, charging is much slower than fueling. Fleets can’t waste driver time stopping at a public charging station. Instead, fleets need to be charging when and where their trucks are already normally sitting idle. That means distributors at Hunts Point need charging for their vehicles at the lots they park at overnight or when waiting for pickups.

Second, charging takes a lot of power. So when fleets try to build charging stations on-site, they end up stuck in years-long queues for utility upgrades, or they have to start using complex electrical equipment to store and generate power on-site.

So how ready is infrastructure, really?

The infrastructure to charge commercial vehicles is ready to scale – in theory. The good news is that we aren’t waiting on breakthrough new technologies to make charging possible. The bad news is that the charging equipment out there is far too complex to build, operate and expand for the average fleet (if you want to know why, check out our longer explainer on how fleet charging works at warehouses & distribution centers).

Daimler Truck Charging Depot
Daimler Truck’s demonstration charging depot

Katzman’s distributors in Hunts Point were early adopters – and reportedly spent 10 years going through the design, permitting, installation and adjustments to their various electrical systems to keep their zero emissions refrigerated trailers running. In other locations throughout the US, fleet managers are having to become experts on managing conversations with utilities on the one hand, and calculating what electrical load their fleet is forecasted to need when procuring equipment on the other hand. Fleet managers don’t have the time or resources to do this. They need a simple and effective tool to make EV charging easy to roll out and operate.

Port Power makes EV as easy as diesel

Port Power was founded by EV industry veterans to solve this exact problem. We are a full solution provider that partners with fleet operators and their real estate partners to solve the charging problem today and scale it to handle all future needs.

Unlike the EV charging infrastructure help that might come from an OEM, a charge point operator, or your local utility, Port Power is an independent player responsive to the specific needs of your fleet.

Unlike consulting firms and electrical contractors, Port was founded around a set of proprietary technologies that allow us to deliver solutions that are truly hassle-free and capable of scaling up in an economical way as your fleet adopts more EVs.

Whether you are a fleet operator buying your first EV trucks or a warehouse property manager whose clients have asked about supporting EV, reach out to schedule a consultation with the team at Port Power for help with:

  • Clearly understanding the transition timelines that apply to your business
  • Getting the full range of options you have to manage this transition
  • Having a soup-to-nuts, managed solution for all your charging needs
  • Getting the government incentives your business deserves without the headache of manual reporting

Get in touch with us today: https://portpower.us/contact/

Uncategorized

Fleet Manager: Why You Need More Than Chargers For…

So… you need to deploy some electric vehicles to your fleet. Whether that is because your company wants to become more sustainable, or because of new government regulations, or because your CFO realized that electric vehicles are actually cheaper to operate – electric vehicles (EVs) are in your future. As you plan for this transition, here are some critical things to consider.

Charging Takes Much Longer Than Refueling

With your current vehicles, the time it takes to refuel has little effect on your operations. Stopping at a gas station, or fueling at your depot normally takes a few minutes, and that short break is actually helpful for the driver as well. But even under the best circumstances, charging an electric vehicle takes hours, not minutes. For passenger cars, the equivalent of, say a 15-gallon gas tank is a 70 kilowatt-hour (kWh) battery. The equivalent for a class 5 truck with a 40 gallon tank is around 200 kWh in battery capacity. A commercial Level 2 AC charger is typically in the 10 kilowatt (kW) range – which means it takes 7 hours to charge a passenger car, or 20 hours for that truck. Even with Level 3 DC “Fast chargers” rated for 50-350 kW – we are looking at at least a 30 minute stop, and likely twice that or more. Obviously your vehicle can’t stop for hours in the middle of the route, so these stops have to be planned, and between that and the scarcity of public chargers, you will want to do most of the charging in the off-time, when your vehicle is parked, and your driver is off duty.

For most fleet managers, this involves installing chargers on their own premises, and charging most of the vehicles at the same time – during their downtime, for instance at night. Vehicles park at the depot off-hours, and each vehicle charges for several hours, or potentially some vehicles fast-charging for an hour or so, for instance if they need to be ready earlier or they came in with a really low battery (“empty gas tank”).

You Need Many Chargers – And Lots of Electricity

Let’s say you have 20 vans to charge at night concurrently, and let’s assume level 2 (“slow”) charging at ~10 kW each. We are looking at about 20 x 10 = 200 kW of power that you need during those hours with slow charging, and much more if you go to fast charging. For comparison – this is as much power as is required to run 60 homes or a 100 room hotel.

Getting your local utility to commit to install this amount of power and actually deliver it to you could take years. And that’s with 20 vans charging slowly. Consider fast chargers, more or larger vehicles, and the conclusion is that no, it’s not as simple as getting chargers and hooking them up. If you want this to work, you will need to be able to optimize how you use the power, and also where you get the power, so as to be able to ensure that your vehicles are powered up and ready for their missions. More on your options below.

Level 2 Chargers
Level 2 EV Chargers

Storage: Charge More Vehicles With Less Power

In the example above, as in most fleets one of the problems is that your vehicles are all charging at the same time – say at night. So you need all that power in the night time – we will call this “peak power”, and you use much less during the day. If you could draw power from the utility during the entire day, and use it all up during the night, even while the utility keeps providing you power, you will get the same “peak power” to your vehicles, but you never needed that much power from the utility. To illustrate, let’s say this was diesel, and you had a diesel tank on the premises. All day and all night diesel tankers come in and fill your tank. But your vans are only filling up during the night. So the tank is filling up all day, and all the vans can be refueled at night. When all the vans are gassed up, maybe your tank is empty, but it has all day to be refilled.

In the example above, say you need to charge your vans between 8 PM to 4 AM, and on average each van uses half its battery charge driving around each day – so 40 kWh per van . You need a total of 200 kW of power for 20 vans charging concurrently, and 800 kWh capacity. But the utility only gives you a 40 kW line. Normally you’d only be able to charge 4 vans at a time. But if you have a storage “tank”, which is actually a battery, you can charge it all day at 40 kWh – so 24 x 40 kWh = 960 kWh, and your vans charge from your battery during the night. The battery is mostly depleted, and recharges again during the day.

Stationary Storage Battery
A Battery System

Electricity Generation: Create Redundancy And Save

With internal combustion vehicles, it is usually safe to assume that diesel will be available in stations, and if it’s not, you can always drive to the next gas station. But when you’re relying on your own chargers, and they are fed by the utility, you are susceptible to power outages which unfortunately in this day and age are pervasive at least a couple of times a year in many areas. This means that sometimes having the ability to generate electricity yourself saves you from having your fleet operations grind to a halt. On the flip side, with the price of solar panels plummeting, generating electricity yourself can not just free you up from that dependence but also significantly reduce your energy cost.

So – many fleets choose to have one or more forms of generating electricity under their control. A gas or diesel generator can be used in emergency situations, typically hooked up to your storage battery. If you have enough space over your parking lots, your roofs or other areas, you can install solar panels to get “free” electricity from the sun. The low price and long lifetime of solar panels these days, coupled with generous government incentives means the amortized cost of that electricity is a fraction of buying electricity from the utility. You can even sell the excess electricity back to the utility if you have more than you can use. It pays for itself.

So by now you have chargers, a utility hookup, your storage battery, and a generator and / or solar panels.

Solar canopy with gas generator
A Solar & Gas Combo

 Tying It All Together With Microgrid Control

When you have your own electric assets on premise that can operate independently of the utility grid, we say you have your own “micro-grid”. Within this microgrid you can optimize your usage for different purposes. For instance, you can prioritize resilience, by trying to keep your battery as full as you can so you always have as much power as possible in case of an outage. In that case you charge it fully whenever possible. Alternatively you can optimize for costs, trying to only buy electricity from the grid when it’s cheap (e.g. in the morning), and then when you have more than you need and the tariff is high – sell it back to the utility at a profit. Or you can try to strike a balance between these approaches, or even have a different policy every day depending on your fleet mission plans, the season etc. You might also want to control the charging this way – faster charging for vehicles that need to be ready earlier and slower charging for vehicles that don’t.

A microgrid controller is a computer system that communicates with all of the elements in your microgrid – your chargers, your storage, your generation, retrieves their current state and controls their actions. Using a microgrid management system, the software that manages the controller, it allows you to monitor and control them, implement such policies, track your equipment usage over time, create reports for analysis and financial reporting etc. It’s really the brain that ties your energy system together, allows you to understand what’s happening and respond / plan effectively. Most microgrid controllers will also allow you to control equipment from different vendors. For instance you may buy chargers from one company, storage from another and a generator from a third. A controller that can manage all of them is critical for interoperability.

SICAM Microgrid Controller
A Microgrid Controller is simply a computer

Managing Your EV or Hybrid Fleet

Finally, it is likely that you already have a fleet management system, probably connected to a telematics system, to manage and track your fleet – locate your vehicles, assign missions, track drivers and driving and so forth. Your EV fleet is another part of your fleet with special requirements (charging) and special advantages like cheaper energy, cheaper maintenance, less noise and pollution and so forth. Connecting your fleet management system to your microgrid and charging infrastructure through the microgrid management system allows you to control both sides in an informed way. For example, the charging control system will be able to tell which vehicles are arriving for charging and what’s their existing “state-of-charge” (i.e. what is their battery level and how much electricity do they need) and plan charger assignment and energy ahead of time. This can lead to further energy optimization if you have too much – or to getting an alert if you have less energy than your fleet needs, which means you may need to re-plan the missions or send a vehicle to a public charging station somewhere.

It is very likely that for the next few years you will be running a “hybrid fleet” – you will have both electric and internal combustion vehicles working side-by-side. Initially you may want to clearly segregate these fleets – different vehicles with different missions or different regions. Eventually the best outcome will result from full integration, where the EVs do the missions that they are best suited to (e.g. the drives with many stops within a limited range from your depot) and the ICE vehicles will fill the gaps where the EVs are stretched – like towing heavy loads to the top of some mountain or driving far beyond the reach of the charging infrastructure. A fleet management system that supports EVs and is integrated with your microgrid management system will be the best way to manage such a fleet.

Congratulations – You Are No Longer Managing “Just” A Fleet

In summary – running an EV fleet effectively and without disruption necessitates building electric infrastructure, that includes several components – a microgrid. Over the long term, this results in significant cost savings. But in the short term – it’s a learning curve. You will have to be involved in planning, managing and running this infrastructure. We at Port Power are here to help you with this learning curve – from planning through deployment and to effective operations. Port Power is a charging-as-a-service provider. We can take over planning, building and running your fleet charging infrastructure, and even help with funding it and getting government grants and tax incentives. The goal should be keeping your fleet running smoothly even as you go through the transition to zero-emissions vehicles (ZEV).

It’s A Long Term Play

Sure, your management’s initial plan may only be to deploy a limited pilot, only a small percentage of your entire fleet. But the right way to think about this transition is to consider the long term. Federal and state regulations, incentives and frankly market dynamics mean that in 5 to 10 years time, most new vehicles in most new fleets will be electric. You can expect practically all light-duty and medium duty vehicles, and eventually most heavy duty vehicles, to be replaced by zero-emissions cars, pickup trucks, vans, buses and trucks.

Your future fleet is virtually all electric and you need a system that scales to that

That means that stopgap solutions that will work for a handful of vehicles will become stumbling blocks in the future. While starting small usually makes sense, it needs to be with an eye to a future where virtually all the fleet is electric. What you build or buy now needs to be compatible with what you will buy in the future, and extensible to allow even more vehicles, more charges, more electricity and so forth. The best way to go about this is partnering with vendors who have an eye on the future and can grow with you. But whatever you choose, remember that this technology is the future, and your ability to operate effectively and stay competitive is going to be dependent on your fleet’s resilience and efficiency – your ability to orchestrate the electric vehicles and the electric infrastructure