A hurricane kills your power. How do you charge your electric vehicle? FPL has a solution.
If a hurricane causes an extended power outage, most Floridians are able to brave long lines at the gas station to refill their cars and even get fuel to power some home essentials with the help of a generator.
Without a home solar system or functioning charging stations, what is an electric car driver to do?
Florida Power & Light on Thursday unveiled its own mobile electric-vehicle charging station to be used during hurricane evacuations, in areas with power outages and in other scenarios.
While other there are companies like Blink and SparkCharge that offer mobile EV charging, FPL’s 39-foot mobile trailer can be sent out into communities to fast-charge up to six cars at a time with a 1.3-megawatt battery, which has the capacity to offer roughly 4,000 miles of range.
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"We want to make sure that EV drivers are confident in their choice using FPL’s EVolution network, and being able to deploy these trailers will help them in an evacuation scenario,” said Mary Alice Jackson, project director of development for FPL. “So we want to make sure that we’re just really providing all that confidence to EV drivers.”
The Juno Beach-based utility plans to have a second mobile charging station ready for use sometime during this hurricane season.
State recommends EV drivers maintain battery before storm
The state Emergency Management Division has an ongoing safety campaign to remind drivers to keep their tanks at least half full during the season that runs from June 1 through Nov. 30. For EV drivers, that preparation means maintaining the battery between 50% and 80%. EV drivers are typically advised to charge their batteries only to 80% to preserve the life of the battery.
“This does not require charging every night but will still ensure that individuals and families have enough charge in their vehicles to evacuate safely and quickly when needed,” a February news release said.
Jackson said that while it depends on the type of vehicle and level of charge, it would take about a half hour for an EV to charge up using the mobile charging station.
FPL recently tested the mobile charging station in Fort Pierce during a planned outage at one of its EV charging stations. Jackson said they serviced about 25 cars over two days.
For now, the mobile charging station will not cost drivers. The location of the mobile charging station will be posted on the FPL EVolution app.
When the station is not deployed, it will sit at FPL’s microgrid on 45th Street in Riviera Beach. There, 5 megawatts of solar panels will charge the mobile charging stations and an on-site battery. FPL also has microgrids at the Tyndall Air Force Base and Florida International University.
'Drones in a box' another new gadget for hurricanes
FPL also announced its “drones-in-a-box,” which will be placed at 13 substations. The 25-pound drones with hurricane-resilient containers are made by Percepto, an Israeli company that opened an office in Palm Beach County last year. These drones will be able to fly on a preprogrammed route to surveil hurricane damage or conduct routine checks of the utility’s equipment.
Hannah Morse covers consumer issues for The Palm Beach Post. Drop a line at hmorse@pbpost.com, call 561-820-4833 or follow her on Twitter @mannahhorse.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida Power & Light unveils mobile electric vehicle charging station
