Nederland Renewable Energy Project

An article in GreenCarReports.com, states that electric vehicles won't bring down the US Power Grid.  It tries to make a comparison between EV power consumption during charging and Plasma TVs, which consume perhaps a quarter of that of a EV on charge.  This is based on a charging rate of 2KW.  It states that plasma TVs did not bring down the grid.  However, there are no details here regarding the number of plasma TVs that are in use vs how many EVs will be in use.  Additionally, a previous article posted here ind

If you don't have coin/credit card meters on the EV charging station itself, here are some technologies that may allow remote billing: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/14/AR2010031402146.html Something less intrusive might be  http://powertagging.com/evtagging.htm

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10468734-1.html It might be nice to extend this solar parking concept to EVs to encourage more of the 1M vehicles passing through Nederland to be electric....

http://www.thebigmoney.com/blogs/shifting-gears/2010/03/09/why-we-need-better-batteries-electric-cars

Before I left for India I actually saw a red Tesla driving up the canyon.  It might have been another test driver or it could have been these guys.  :-) http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-409938 shows a video of a Tesla driven from Boulder to Estes Park(via Ned) and back.  This $158K MSRP vehicle is not really our target audience for Ned electric car (EV) charging stations as it has a 2E50 mile range...they ended up with about 70 miles range left.  EVs that have half this range would welcome a charging station in Ned.   It would be great for local tourism as these folks will shop and eat while "topping off" their car batteries.

About 6 weeks ago I was in Berkeley attending two concert nights at a recently opened LEED-certified theater

http://freightandsalvage.com/press/releases/F&S_Begins_Construction_0130...

While I took BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) both nights, I did wander into the nearby city garage when I saw a sign for electric car charging.  I was pleasantly surprised to see FREE electric vehicle charging.  I've uploaded several photos.  The only photo I didn't upload was the available (also free) standard electric plug for plug-in vehicles that use the usual 110V outlets.

Imagine if Nederland had several of these charging stations by the Visitors Center.  I bet we'd get groups of EV owners coming up just like we have motorcycle groups.  The EV charge time could work to Nederland's advantage as the owners would likely stay in town several hours - eating, shopping, spending tourist dollars.  It's a win-win.  If there's ever a parking garage built this should be a mandatory requirement (ideally in every parking space in my opinion!). 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/realestate/30posting.html

Transportation info and links...
Public Transit - www.rtd-denver.com
Fuel Economy - www.fueleconomy.gov/
Alternative Fuel Vehicles - www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/hev/

Electric motorcycle - http://www.nextautos.com/brammo-enertia-electric-motorcycle-sales-start-...