Walsh College has installed three car charging stations on its campus and will bring in more, if and when demand calls for it.
The school has a main campus in Troy and three satellite campuses. Chris Stout, director of facilities management, says the chargers have been used periodically since they were connected in December. Stout can track via computer such stats as when and for how long, etc. the chargers are used.
Walsh joins other universities that have installed car chargers, many of them paid for in part with Department of Energy grants that were designed to encourage the building of a reliable network of car charging stations and in turn support the alternative energy automobile market.
Businesses, cities and universities are adding car charging stations as a customer amenity and also to support the building of the network.
The grant to Walsh was $20,000, Stout says, about half the cost of the project.
She was a lead organizer in the building of the college's Jeffery W. Barry Center, a LEED gold-certified facility that meets the U.S. Green Building Council's high standards for energy efficiency, use of renewable energy and other green-minded construction and building operation aspects.
"The electric charging stations are really just a continuation of the green initiatives we have in place on campus," she says.
Other schools with car chargers include Schoolcraft College, which installed four last year, Wayne State University, and also Western Michigan and Michigan State universities.
Source: Chris Stout, director of facilities management, Walsh College
Writer: Kim North Shine
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