How Renters Could Buy Electricity to Charge Their Electric Cars

March 20th, 2010 by Susan Kraemer

Apartment building owners typically meter the electricity of each of the apartment units they rent out individually, unlike the “common area” places such as the parking lots typically provided for their renters in general.

But that might change. We are approaching a future in which parking lots could be providing electricity, not just to keep the parking lot lights on, but to also provide electricity to charge up any electric cars that will parked there at night.

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How to get repaid for that soon-to-be greater use of “common area” electricity?

SemaConnect, a Maryland based company has the solution. Apartment owners and even homeowners might want to make vehicle charging an option, but need to be repaid for the electricity used.

While Coulomb Technologies and the other big players in vehicle charging are focusing on the municipal or large business charging market for cities, SemaConnect is looking out for the little guy.

This small wall mounted unit utilizes a smart card reader to charge for access to electricity. Those who wish to use the system will secure a smart card from the owner of the system. The smart card is swiped for access and the user is assessed a fee.

Each unit costs between $2,500 and $3,000, and could easily collect from $125 to $150 a month for its electric charges, in which case the break even to repay the investment in the unit would be just a couple of years.

Depending on electricity costs in the region, there would some profit each year afterward. Probably enough to pay back an investment in solar panels on the parking lot roof, so the electricity provided is all clean wholesome sunshine power.

Image: SemaConnect

Source: Autoblog Green

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Tags: Electricity, Grid, SemaConnect, Utilities

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

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