Design
We do site assessments, load calculations, and electrical design for every situation, from a single charging station for a single-family home to a parking garage full of charging stations for a fleet of vehicles.
Most often we are connecting these charging stations to an existing electric service, so we will do the necessary calculations to determine that there is sufficient capacity in that service to handle the additional load of car charging.
For a single-family residence, the process is usually simple; some basic information about the location of the circuit breaker panel and where the charging station will go, along with photos of the breaker panel, is often enough for us to create an accurate quote. If there is a detached garage or some distance from the circuit breaker panel to the charging location, we will schedule a site visit to gather the details. For a multi-family building a visit to the site is almost always required. There are many different situations that we encounter in these buildings, so there is no one-size-fits-all solution and each installation requires some design work. In many cases, we can do these for free but sometimes there are enough complications to warrant negotiation of a fee for design service.
Commercial and government locations also require a site visit and are of similar complexity to multifamily buildings. We will work with the owner to identify the most cost-effective solutions that take into consideration tenant and customer parking situations, location of the electric service, goals of the building owner and occupants, and possible future expansion of EV charging.
Networked charging stations that use 4G cell signals require assessment of signal strength, and we do those measurements using a Squid cell signal strength meter that finds all the cell signals at any location. If a signal booster is required, we provide the design of the booster system including antennas, cables, and amplifiers.