EVs

Project: On San Cristobal we have three 800 kilowatt wind turbines, but no means to store this energy. The wind blows hardest at night when demand is low, so a large percent of that energy is going to waste. Electric vehicles can act as community storage, as their batteries can be charged at night. This would eleminate the need for importing an estimated 12,000 gallons of gasoline a month (if half of the cars on San Cristobal were EV’s) from the continent while tapping an exisiting green energy source of electricity that is not being fully utilized.

Initial parts of this program will be, identifying optimum charging times, designing a charging station that would operate only during those times, estimate the maximum charging capacity of the unused generating capability of the turbines and how to distribute that through what type and quantity of EV’s that would best suit the needs of the population.

Secondary considerations have to do with convincing a population to use EVs. By performance standards even the best EV’s have many disadvantages, range, speed, power, no air-con, to name a few. In conjunction with the government’s relaxing of tarrifs on imported EV’s and the free charging station (equivalent of “free gas for life”), a further PR project will be the building of a EV here in San Cristobal by the local high school students and volunteers here in San Cristobal.