NRG Energy is partnering with a variety of companies across Texas to provide the first privately funded at-home and public charging stations in Houston and the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) area. As we’ve covered several times, the EV Project, a program primarily in west coast states, is providing similar tools, but is partially funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
To start with the announcements, the charging station subsidiary of NRG Energy – eVgo – is partnering with utility provider Green Mountain Energy to supply homes and electric vehicles with electricity from wind power through a three-year service agreement called Pollution Free EV. Since then, NRG Energy has also partnered with AeroVironment to expand the eVgo program to the DFW area.
image via AeroVironment
NRG Energy and AeroVironment are planning to install 70 public charging units in the DFW area, and 50 in Houston, by 2012. The units, called “Freedom Stations,” are comprised of one commercial AC charging station [pdf] which the company states can give a vehicle 25 miles of range with one hour of charge time, and one fast-charging DC station [pdf] which is stated to be able to give vehicles 30 miles of range in only 10 minutes.
The stations will be available in at least eighteen different Walgreens locations in the DFW area, and at least twelve more public stations are expected to be installed by Labor Day of this year. Finally, TXU Energy customers will be able to sign-up for a flat-monthly fee to use public stations in the area, like those at Walgreens stores. TXU Energy also announced that they will donate infrastructure, and reimburse electricity costs, for city electric vehicle for up to three years.
The big difference is that NRG Energy and AeroVironment are actually building out their public charging network, whereas the EV Project is not. Oh sure there are press releases and a lot of hoopla around the EV Project, but at the end of the day it’s been a complete disaster. For some reason they simply aren’t deploying as they’ve promised. They only have a handful of chargers installed and they were to have 14,000 installed by the end of summer.