[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Consulting Specifying Engineer podcast. I'm your host, Amaro Rosgas, and today we're talking to Joe Romano from the Ciska Hennessey Group. We've talked to others about electric vehicles and EV charging stations before, but never focused on the electrical side of things as deeply as we will be today.
And this is great because according to an electrical and power research study we did Last fall, about 4 in 10 electrical engineers are specifying EV charging stations and whether they specify those EV products. Right now, about 18% expect to specify it in the next six months. So that's short term.
And another 21% expect to specify EV charging systems in the next one to two years.
So to get a little bit more specific on this topic today, I'm talking to Joe Romano, an associate partner at Ciska Hennessey Group.
Joe is a licensed electrical Engineer with almost 20 years of experience in aviation, public sector, industrial and commercial markets.
He has provided electrical design and MEP project management services in each of these markets and has extensive knowledge of various codes, standards and other regulatory requirements related to MEP systems. Thanks so much for joining me today, Joe.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Thanks for having me, Amara. Great to be here and participating in this exciting discussion.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So let's concentrate on electric vehicle charging stations and specifically focus on the electrical and power systems.
So to kick things off, what do you see as the current state of EV use and the need for chargers and kind of as a follow up, how does that impact what engineers need to consider as part of a new build or renovation?
[00:01:55] Speaker B: So we're seeing obviously EV demand is growing.
You know, there's been a 50% increase in the number of EVs nationally last year. You know, we just wrapped up the Chicago Auto show here yesterday, which is the nation's largest auto show. And this year they expended expanded to nine EV manufacturers compared to only four last year.
There's still a lot of interest in EVs from the public side of things. The problem we see is there's not currently enough public infrastructure, especially for long range travel as it relates to ev.
You know, here in Illinois, we've set a goal of getting 1 million EVs on the road by 2030. When you think about what that means, they've estimated that that's going to take about 36,000 public chargers to support those EVs on the road currently. Today we're probably only at about 10% of that number. So you're in a situation right now where, you know, some people are scared of buying EVs because the lack of infrastructure is there. And you may be seeing some of the little manufacturers slow down a little bit and on ramping up their production because the sales just aren't there. So you also see issues where climate issues may be turning people away, especially in the colder climates where trouble with charging and just how you operate an electric vehicle in a colder environment may turn people off from, from EVs. But the demand is still there, it's growing, it's going to continue to grow.
And, and that EV infrastructure is just not there to support what everybody wants to get to. So when thinking about developing new projects and whatnot, EVs have to be part of the discussion.
There are now building codes coming into play that are going to start mandating and in some cases have already mandated implementing EV infrastructure as part of your build.
There's also a number of federal and local funding sources available to help deploy this public charging network, especially in places that would be considered kind of alternative fuel corridors along the networks of highways to kind of promote more of that long range use of, of EVs. So some of these will be projects in and of themselves as infrastructure projects. But even in renovations and new builds for all different types of buildings, this is yet another electrical load, electrical demand that will have to be considered as part of the design process.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: Well, Joe, that tells me you're going to be really busy for the next few years then.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So what are the key factors to consider in terms of electrical coordination when designing an EV charging station? And how do these factors vary according to a different building type or location?
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Well, we really need to understand what, what type of charging patterns are anticipated. How would these chargers be used? Are you looking at an area where, you know, maybe a level one or a level two charge, where a longer charge time period is acceptable? Or is it maybe along one of these alternative fuel infrastructure corridors where the fast charges are needed for people on these long range trips? So it's, it's really kind of understanding what that anticipated charging pattern is and what that demand may look like, as well as the type of charging that you're looking at using.
Once you kind of know that, especially in existing facilities, you need to look at the infrastructure that's available and what may need to be upgraded.
A lot of older buildings have infrastructure that may be capable of supporting the extra load of the EV chargers, but a lot of them won't.
New builds are obviously pretty a little bit easier, but you also have to work closely with the utility companies to make sure. That they can support the anticipated demand that you're thinking about seeing.
The other thing to think about too is I kind of mentioned this before, is climate considerations, you know, in the colder environments, what does that mean? If you have chargers deployed in a facility where there's lots of snow and ice, are the cords going to get frozen in the snow and ice and render the chargers useless? Things like that, little things like that that really you need to kind of pay attention to as you're developing the design and then an understanding of the codes in terms of how you design the building infrastructure or the upgrades to support the chargers. There's a lot of changes that have been occurring with the National Electrical Code and more to come specific to EV charging and whatnot. That really it's going to be a challenge to keep up with it because I think they're going to continue to change and for the better as we know more about how these are used.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: Agreed, agreed.
So let's change gears just slightly here and look at the electrical load. So how does the electrical load of an EV charging station impact the overall power distribution system? Are there precautions that you need to take? You know, do we need to look at upgrades in the future and then what trades need to be considered? I mean, we're talking about electricians and other contractors when you're putting together this whole infrastructure. Tell me a little bit more about that.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Well, it all boils down to the capacity, really. You know, the charger from the building's perspective is an electrical load. It will use power just like anything else.
So understanding how many chargers, what each charger draws, how, how many chargers are in use at the same time, all of that kind of comes into play to try to understand what additional load you're going to be adding to your building. But then you also have to look at what's there already today.
The capacity in the building may not be there. You may have to bring in a new utility service from the electric company to support the additional load. And that's where I said before, early coordination with the utility is key. In some instances, depending on how large of an EV infrastructure charger like program you would want to employ, the utility may not have enough capacity in, in the grid at that particular location. And that, that may tell, that may be your limiting factor and allow you to build only X amount of chargers here and there. But kind of going a little bit beyond just the electrical side of things, looking at it from a total project perspective, there's a number of other things that we really got to Think about too obviously there's space constraints.
You have to have the spaces for the vehicles to park, to use the chargers. You know, one of the things that you see a lot of in the news today is people, because of the lack of public infrastructure, there's a lot of long lines at these public charging stations for people to sit and wait while other people are charging. So what does that look like? If you have, you know, a parking garage or a large parking lot, what happens if, if you don't have enough chargers because of electrical infrastructure limitations, and now all of a sudden you have all of these vehicles queuing up. So, you know, that's, that's really kind of looking at it from a space perspective. You know, potentially with, with your civil engineers or your architects.
When you are upgrading the electrical systems within the building, talking with the architects about how much space you may need there, there's extra distribution equipment that may be needed.
Where does that distribution equipment go? If the electrical room is already jam packed like most electrical rooms usually are, what other spaces can be converted to electrical rooms to house the additional distribution that may be needed?
And then it comes to how do you get the conduits out to the chargers themselves? You know, if you're in a parking garage or a building that has a parking garage, how are you going to route those conduits through a building? If it's a parking lot, in an already existing parking lot, how are you going to get it underground out to those parking spaces? So in a lot of cases, you're talking with perhaps your civil engineers to understand what other utilities are in the ground and what's your best way of getting the conduits out there without interrupting or disturbing any of the other utilities in the area? A couple of other things that we think about too, that, that aren't talked about a whole lot but do need to be considered is just the weight of vehicles.
You know, again, going back to a parking garage scenario, generally these EV vehicles are much heavier.
So if you have a large concentration of them parked on a certain level in a parking garage, charging or sitting there waiting to charge, was the original structure designed for that, or are there going to be problems there?
And then you got to think about fire protection. We see a lot in the news about battery fires and what, how you have to take a different approach to those. What does that mean for fire protection systems? You know, if it's out in the parking lot away from the building, maybe not that big of a concern. But if you have a battery fire break out in the Middle of a parking garage, how do you allow the first responders to get to that and fight that fire and contain it? But then also how do they get that out of there with the limited space in some of the parking garages? So it is a little bit more electrical is a big focus of it, just from the ability to get the power to the vehicles. But with the different building types, there's a lot of other things that need to be considered just like any other project.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: Right, right. So many challenges to consider.
And integration. You mentioned this. When you're integrating a charging station into an existing power distribution network, what are the specific challenges? And then how can you design an electrical system for EV charging stations to optimize energy efficiency? Because that is always a huge topic.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Sure. Well, you know, as I said before, when you talk about putting this on the grid, that's mainly a utility issue. So that's where that coordination with the utility company comes in. Very, very important thing to talk about and understanding what they may be able to serve with their equipment on the site or their equipment in that particular portion of the grid.
You also have to understand that the demand is probably not going to be constant. It's going to vary depending on how people using the chargers.
There could be things and we see this a lot, you know, with different types. I'll give an example that we talk about a lot. Specific to airports, you have long term parking and short term parking. Well, long term parking, the vehicle is going to be parked there for a day, maybe several days.
So do you really need the added infrastructure for the fast charge if the car is going to sit there for two days, whereas short term parking, they may only be there for a little while.
A fast charge may be more appropriate there. But what does that's obviously a much bigger load than, than the level one or level two type chargers. And then you know, the ability to kind of use demand response and let the charging system and the chargers themselves kind of talk to each other based on what they see, the different levels of charge at the various vehicles and how they can basically make the best use of the power that they have with the cars that are there. So the, the car that pulls up, that's at maybe 70, 80% that just wants to top off maybe that one gets a little bit less and takes a little bit longer to charge than the one that pulls up, that's at 30% to help balance that loadout.
So again, it kind of goes back to understanding what are your charging patterns and, and how may they, how that may be used.
I think, you know, another thing to look at too with this in terms of energy efficiency. You know, we still do see quite a lot of opportunities in buildings to continually improve the energy efficiency of the building overall.
For example, a chiller plant, if you have a building that has, you know, parking garage associated with it, say it's a high rise office tower in a major metropolitan area and they have a chiller plant that uses, you know, X amount of kw every year because it's an older antiquated system.
Well, the infrastructure that exists today, the electrical infrastructure, kind of supports that big chiller load. But if there are opportunities to potentially upgrade those chillers as an end of life and maybe reduce some of that consumption, while the electrical infrastructure, the physical electrical equipment that is there to support that chiller is going to use less power, freeing up some capacity, if you will, for you to put that towards EVs so that there, there's opportunities there where maybe you're making your building more efficient in other ways. Not necessarily reducing the electrical infrastructure or the demand, but maybe shifting it towards EVs.
And then the other thing to think about too is we see a lot of, is renewable energy. How can renewable energy be factored in to help offset some of that demand? We see quite a bit of open parking areas where they have essentially EV carports, where the charger is powered by a solar panel, kind of a solar panel canopy over the parking lot. That would help, you know, kind of supplement building power and to support the charging demands.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: And Joe, you already have your crystal ball out and working.
So my next question is about the future and looking at scalability.
What considerations should be made in electrical coordination of EV charging stations to accommodate this increasing demand and these evolving technologies?
[00:16:52] Speaker B: Well, I think the easy one is to, you know, get, get future infrastructure in early and, and leave that room for expansion. You know, so if, if you're already planning on tearing up a parking lot to, to put in a bunch of conduit for some brand new EV chargers, it doesn't hurt to put a few more conduits in the ground. I mean, that's, that's a relatively cheap cost compared to what it would take to come back down the road and tear that parking lot up again just to put in some more conduits. So that, that's one good example of, of how to do it. You.
And again, I keep going back to the utility company side of things, kind of knowing what their plans are. If, if they can only support, you know, X amount of chargers today, what can they support in the future? Sometimes these utility system upgrades on larger projects can take upwards of several years. So you may have capacity today to do certain number of chargers. You may want to do more. And you may know that, like the future, in the future, two, three years down the road, when the utility does theirs, that capacity will be there. So leaving that extra space in the electrical room, maybe buying that little bit larger piece of electrical distribution equipment with the spare breakers, that would allow you to easily just add on as, as the utility capability grows, your infrastructure can grow with it.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: Sure, sure.
All right, Joe, as a fellow Chicagoan, who or what inspired you growing up? Gotta hear this answer.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: Well, for me, it was my father. My father was a carpenter who ultimately ended up working his way into facility management. And you know, he was a carpenter by trade. That was what his passion was. But he was always interested in and learning about other building systems and technologies, even, you know, with what he did at his facility and even bringing some of that home. So did a lot of hands on projects with him as a kid.
Tagged along with him quite a bit at work when I was a kid. And just kind of watching him go through that and, and seeing how, how he worked and how he was passionate about those things really kind of instilled that passion in me and, and made me what I am.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: Brilliant.
Well, that was Joe Romano from Cisca Hennessey Group talking about EV charging stations. Thanks, Joe. It was a pleasure to chat with you.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: Yes, Mara, thank you for having me. This was a great conversation.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: Well, for more information on electrical engineering topics related to power distribution systems, electrical coordination, and EV charging stations, visit consulting specifying
[email protected]. to learn more about this topic specifically, I suggest you go back and listen to other podcasts. Thanks for listening and catch you next time. Bye bye.
