Bringing More EV To EC - Cooper Holmes, Azor Goodwin

Bringing More EV to EC 

       For our final project, the goal was to research and initiate action toward electric car chargers on campus. By meeting with campus officials, teachers, students, and members of ECOS, we were able to formulate a fiscal plan to add more EV chargers to Eckerd’s residential side of campus.

We choose to work on this project because we both agreed Eckerd does not do enough in terms of promoting alternative energies on campus. Our idea was that by adding more EV chargers to campus, we could help to promote Eckerd’s strive to push for sustainable energy. The chargers themselves serve as a promotion that we offer sustainable energies here on campus. We also wanted to make EV seem more desirable to our fellow students by adding more convenient locations. 

We first met with Evan Bollier, the director of Sustainability here at Eckerd. Working with him, we were able to create a clear and concise plan. There are currently 4 EV charging stations on campus located in the waterfront parking lot, the Beta parking lot, the North Parking lot (by the pool), and the ES parking lot. All of the stations (except for the ES station) can add more chargers. Each charging station is equipped with 2 charging nozzles. A pair of chargers plus the pedestal they rest on is roughly $1,500. An additional $2,500 is needed for installation fees, electrical fees, etc. With all this in consideration, it is roughly $4,000 to add 2 chargers to a station. The capacity is there and it is a relatively easy process, the problem is funding. That is where we come in. 

Our key priorities on why we should add more EV chargers to our campus:

1. Promotes green energies on campus. Our old habits are often wasteful and much of Eckerd seems to agree. Our survey results showed that 77.1% of our respondents said Eckerd could be doing a better job at funding to support alternative energy and 17.1% said they are not doing enough. EV charging stations are frequently located towards the front of the parking lot which means they see a lot of foot traffic from students walking in from their own cars. This will serve as a form of advertising sustainable energy. We hope that by funding EV charges we could promote more sustainable energies here on campus. 

2. We are too reliant on fossil fuels, especially from foreign nations. Take the Russia Ukraine conflict for example. The price of gas skyrocketed after the conflict began. If we were less reliant on fossil fuels and relied more on creating our own sustainable energies we, as a society, would not be in as much trouble financially. Fossil fuels not only contribute to climate change but also release CO2 into our community.

3. Our current energy usage is sloppy. In Stokness, we learned that our current lifestyles are extremely inefficient. We, as a society, like to take shortcuts. Implementing sustainable habits is unfortunately NOT a shortcut or a short-term solution. On the bright side, we have plenty of potential for better energy use here at Eckerd. We have some of the brightest minds and it is clearly a large priority. 

4. Rise of the electric car industry. The number of electric cars has grown from roughly 16 thousand to 2 million in 10 years (Electrek). For years Tesla dominated the EV market with their luxurious cars. Now that more companies are starting to build their own EV models, at more affordable prices, the industry is booming with environmental enthusiasts and individuals looking to steer away from gas. In 2021 alone, EV sales reached between 607,000 to 600,000 cars (Statista). As this trend continues, Eckerd will start to see more electric cars. We want to be ready and equipped for when this happens… Hopefully, before we are all underwater!

We chose to reach out to ECOS first, knowing that they manage a significant amount of Eckerd’s club budgets. We gave them a brief presentation on our key priorities above, collaborated ideas, and came up with the idea to reach out to other organizations across campus including ASPEC, several club heads, and ERC in search of a small grant to get the project started.

Unfortunately, we were not able to initiate any physical action on campus due to our project's short time frame. But we were able to initiate conversation with ECOS, ASPEC, and members of the Office of Sustainability which is a strong start! It was very difficult for us to find the budget to get our project started, but by communicating our concern to the school we hope to inspire future funding towards this issue. 

We hope our initial actions will promote further interest, carrying on into future semesters. 



If you are interested or would like to learn more about bringing EV chargers to Eckerd please contact us: 

apgoodwi@eckerd.edu 

ctholmes@eckerd.edu 


Sources:

https://electrek.co/2021/11/09/the-number-of-us-electric-vehicles-grows-from-16k-to-2-million-in-10-years/ 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/665823/sales-of-plug-in-light-vehicles-in-the-us/ 



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