88 New Fast EV Charger Ports Coming To Brooklyn

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After writing about 40 new fast EV chargers made operational near Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, here is a similar article about 88 fast charging ports announced for Brooklyn, NY. These EV chargers are somewhat different because they are backed by energy storage in the form of batteries. The batteries can be used to store electricity when it costs less than peak demand rates and then utilized later to charge EVs during peak times when it costs more, thus avoiding the highest electricity rates.

XCharge North America has partnered with Energy Plus on the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, EV charging hub, which will be backed by 9.6 MWh of batteries.

“Helping launch the East Coast’s largest battery-backed fast-charging depot is a defining moment for XCharge NA and for the EV industry,” said Aatish Patel, co-founder and president of XCharge NA. “Through this strategic alignment with Energy Plus, we’re proving that the EV transition can thrive domestically, setting a model for how public and private companies can come together to accelerate the clean energy transition and make urban energy cleaner, faster, and smarter.”

The new chargers will be able to deliver electricity at up to 300 kW, which is very fast. Each of the 44 chargers has two ports, as far as I understand. “The new hub, located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, will feature 44 dual-head XCharge GridLink chargers, which can simultaneously charge up to 88 EVs (each charger dynamically allocates power between two connected EVs).”

As with the Chicago airport fast chargers, the new Brooklyn location should get a lot of use. This borough has a population of about 2.7 million people.

In some of the articles I have read about the cost of EV charging, there is a bit of misinformation. The confusion or mistake is comparing the cost of one public EV charging session to the cost of filling up a gas or diesel vehicle at a gas station. The comparison that is made is the charging cost vs. the price at the pump. However, the price at the pump for gas and diesel does not reflect the whole picture. If all the public health, environmental, oil and gas subsidies, disastrous oil spills, and geopolitical costs of gasoline and diesel are factored in, the price at the pump may be three or four times greater. Fossil fuels cost trillions of dollars. “This $7 trillion figure comes from a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). For context, $7 trillion is equivalent to around 7% of global GDP, a huge amount of money.”

This estimate is much higher than the figures we looked at earlier because it includes not only explicit subsidies (i.e., direct payments), but also implicit subsidies — the societal costs of burning fossil fuels. When we burn fossil fuels, we cause local air pollution that damages human health, and we drive climate change, which also results in environmental and social damage. The IMF also attributes to fossil fuels the social costs of road accidents and congestion. Economists usually refer to these indirect costs, which aren’t reflected in market prices, as “externalities” rather than “subsidies.”

The cost of a fast charge at an EV charger in a public setting might seem high at times compared to gasoline or diesel that costs three to four dollars per gallon. But the true price of gasoline or diesel is far closer to $10 a gallon, or more, if all the costs of gasoline and diesel are included.

It was just about a month ago that Tesla opened an EV charging hub powered by its own solar power and battery storage. It has about 164 charging stalls.