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By Danny King, Contributor


With many of the makers of electric-vehicle charging stations either focusing on fleets or single-family home garages, one Maryland-based startup is pitching a system toward the urban set by letting owners of personal or shuttle EVs pay for what they use.


Annapolis-based SemaConnect, which was founded about two years ago, recently snagged a regionally high-profile business when it sold one of its metering systems  to the Loews Annapolis Hotel, according to SemaConnect Founder and CEO Mahi Reddy.


Because of the SemaConnect metering system, consisting of pedestal mounted and/or wall mounted charging stations like the one pictured here, the hotel can make money offering access to electricity to eCruisers, an operator of Gem EV shuttles (below) that run hotel guests to and from local restaurants, without risk of others plugging in and accessing electricity at the hotel's expense.


SemaConnect, whose number of customers is still in the single digits, is looking to help solve the quandary of having many of the biggest EV proponents and likely early adopters located in cities such as San Francisco and Boston, where a relatively low percentage of residents have their own dedicated garage.


Because the system requires access authentication through "smart cards" - the user has to run his card across a card-reading device on the charging station to turn on the juice - apartment managers, garage owners and the like wouldn't have to worry about strangers plugging in for "free electricity." Plus, they  can cut off a user's access if his predetermined monthly access fee hasn't been paid.



"It enables the apartment building owners to distribute secure, safe electricity access," said Reddy, who started moving the company toward a product launch after raising funds selling healthcare information technology company CBaySystems in 2008.


Like most anything involving the expansion of EV use, SemaConnect is not a cheap proposition. Reddy says the company charges between $2,500 and $3,000 per station for full installation of the SemaConnect system.
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Tags: Batteries, Energy Companies, Hybrid, Plug-ins and Electric, Charging Stations, Electric Vehicles, EVs, Plug-in Vehicles, SemaConnect

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EV Charging System Lets Apartment Owners, Others Offer Juice to Individual Users was originally published by Green Car Advisor. Read the full story by clicking here.