What do Whole Foods, Meijer, Best Buy and the Mall Of America all have in common? They have all implemented charging stations for electric vehicles in pilot locations. Some charge a fee and others offer charging for free. The free services are expected to decrease over time as the number of electric vehicles on the road increases. It takes longer to charge a battery than it does to fill up with gas and customer cars spend regular amounts of time in retail parking lots. As such, electric car charging stations are a natural fit for savvy grocers who want to be a destination for the growing number of people owning Chevy Volts and Nissan Leafs. Most major cars companies have plans to release electric cars in the near future.
I envision covered parking areas featuring charging stations partially powered by solar panel roofs and maybe even a small wind turbine or two. Solar panels and wind turbines can also be installed on your main building too. If this sounds a bit too futuristic, keep in mind that the Department of Energy has been promoting new laws requiring some form of renewable energy on all commercial buildings.
If we don’t couple clean forms of energy with electric vehicles we will only be shifting carbon emissions from the tailpipe to the coal fired electricity generation plant. By producing energy near the point of use we will keep in check the electric grid stress (and related distribution and upgrade costs) which will be created as vehicles shift from gasoline to electricity.
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