Human health benefits from a healthy planet. That’s why I’m honored to work on projects that improve energy management and sustainability, such as our recent addition of a solar powered charging station to our La Jolla campus. Campus employees and visitors who drive electric vehicles (EV) can now recharge their cars on site using this solar powered charging station. The addition of this environmentally-friendly technology is exciting news for our sustainably progressive campus. In the past year, La Jolla has been recognized for our energy efficiency and conservation efforts and employee-friendly wellness programs and, later this year, LED lights will be installed in the parking structure.
Finding an EV charging station partner that would be a good match presented its challenges for our energy and conservation team. Some providers were not financially stable or required long-term commitments with significant capital for infrastructure just to make a point of connection. We also had to build a cost structure that accounted for longer term funding, and the costs of running underground power lines and conduits, which can be prohibitive.
In the end, we purchased an untethered, solar-powered, mobile charging station. The EV unit can be transported and easily positioned with a forklift throughout the parking lot and shipped to local J&J campuses – Neutrogena (Los Angeles, CA), Advanced Sterilization Products (Irvine, CA) and Biosense Webster (Irwindale, CA). This means more people can take advantage of the technology, as well as improve the return on investment.
Typically, an EV can travel at least 70 miles before being recharged. While there are charging stations at local hotels and universities in the area, the convenience of having one at work appealed to many people. The unit can charge two vehicles at a time, with the average charging time being 2.5-3 hours.
The EV station has been live since December 2014 and already more than six employees have registered their vehicles. Although charging station protocol is generally implicitly understood among EV owners, employees will use Outlook to schedule charging time and a charge point card system will be implemented to easily identify cars and notify owners if or when their vehicle is fully charged and has been unplugged (in a friendly way, of course).
Bill is Senior Site Manager at Janssen Research & Development, LLC. With more than 25 years of experience in the health care industry, Bill has led high performance teams in Facilities as well as Environmental, Health, Safety and Sustainability (EHS&S). During the past five years, Bill’s efforts have been targeted toward building improvements related to energy management and sustainability, specializing in cost-effective, risk-based solutions designed to match business needs. Bill resides in Encinitas, California, is fluent in Spanish and serves as a mentor to high school and college students.