Solar charging infrastructure will power La Conner tourism

The La Conner public parking lot, east of Maple Hall, occupies about an acre. It’s big enough to host a 400 kilowatt solar generation system, built in the form of a canopy covering most of the lot. Such a canopy would also provide protection from snow, rain and sun.

Building a solar canopy over most of the lot would require installation of support structures and some analysis on how the power would be delivered to the grid, or whether it would be better to install batteries and keep the system off the grid. A grid connection there might be more expensive than batteries.

Depending on how the solar panels on such a canopy can be angled, an array would probably generate about 400,000 kilowatt-hours a year. The energy wouldn’t be generated continuously over the year. However, solar energy production is best in La Conner during our prime tourist months. Figure that this hypothetical solar array would produce about 50,000 kWh/month from April-September.

A DC fast (level 3) charger recharges car batteries at a rate of 50 or more kilowatt-hours per hour. A large electric car, like a Tesla Model S or a Mustang Mach-E, has a 100 kWh battery, and could thus be recharged from zero to full in about two hours. At an AC (level 2) charger, the same car would probably charge at a rate of about 10 kWh/hour and would take 10 hours to recharge from zero.

Most cars that would charge at a public station in La Conner probably wouldn’t need to be recharged all the way from zero. Some cars would need more, some less. Start with an estimate that the average car would only require half of a full charge (50 kWh) when first parked here. Thus, a 50,000 kWh/month solar array would supply enough energy to recharge 1,000 cars/month, or over 30 a day.

About a month ago, I wanted to recharge my car at the Pier 7 parking lot, but its two spots were full. During the tourist months, it’s possible that 30 vehicle owners a day will want to recharge in La Conner.

As I’ve said in this space before, it’s important to have more Level 2, and at least a couple of Level 3, chargers in town. The cost of electric cars is continuing to fall. Battery range is still improving. These trends are likely to continue. The share of electric vehicles on the road will continue to increase. In Norway, where electric cars have been adopted more quickly than in any other country, about 90% of new car sales are electric and about half of the cars licensed to be driven there are electric.

Without charging infrastructure, La Conner will be like a town without a gas station and auto repair shop during the early years of gasoline car adoption, when tires might have only lasted 50 miles. We are a little out of the way. It’s 25 miles from the Interstate to La Conner and back; it’s about 10 miles from (and back to) Highway 20. That’s not much, but if you’re traveling between major cities on I-5, or to or from a ferry in Anacortes, it’s just enough to make an EV driver think twice.