California will likely exceed its goal of 1.5 million electric vehicles on the road by 2025. With a growing number of EV drivers commuting throughout the Bay Area, workplace charging stations can help alleviate concerns of “range anxiety,” ensuring drivers will have enough charge to get home.
Los Altos High School now has 29 electric vehicle chargers on their campus thanks to a grant from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. The Air District’s Charge! Program offers funding available to public and private entities to expand EV charging availability.
Sybil Cramer, a long-time Los Altos High School volunteer and founder of the PTSA Go Green Sustainability Committee, facilitated the installation of EV chargers at the school. PowerFlex Systems, a charging station provider which specializes in cost-effective, large-scale EV charging, installed the chargers and received the grant.
“Providing EV charging in the workplace is one of the best ways to encourage EV adoption, and that benefits all of us,” says Sybil. The chargers are free for staff and students to use and available to the public on weekends and after school hours at a minimal cost.
“Providing EV charging stations for our staff seemed like an obvious next step for us, especially with the solar panels available in the parking lot,” says Galen Rosenberg, Assistant Principal in charge of facilities at Los Altos High School. The school has both solar panels and battery storage on site to produce and store clean energy.
“The concept is that when it’s a sunny day, more energy is sent to the vehicles so that we use more of our on-site local energy here,” says George Lee, CEO and cofounder of PowerFlex Systems. “It reduces our need to pull from the grid.”
Los Altos High School is a Santa Clara County Green Certified School and continues to shine as an example of local sustainability efforts. For more information about installing EV charging stations on your campus, contact Sybil Cramer at sybilcramer@mac.com.
