Abstract

This applied research paper reports efforts of engineering technology faculty and students to design and build a sustainable charging station that is fully sponsored by an energy services company. The objective of this project is to install a 33.6 kW solar array on Sam Houston State University’s (SHSU) campus and connect it to a university owned substation by a 50 kW capacity grid-tie inverter. A Charge-Point Express 250 DC fast charger will also be installed on the SHSU campus near the PhotoVoltaics (PV) array to charge electric vehicles (EV). The project also includes an outdoor educational display describing how the system operates, and offsets carbon emissions providing environmental savings on campus. The project provides a multitude of benefits by placing an EV fast charger on campus with it being convenient for the citizens of Huntsville, TX and electric vehicle drivers that are traveling between Houston and Dallas, TX. It will also showcase to the SHSU community the increasing importance of renewable energy resources and display an example of how clean power is generated. We are promoting more sustainable operations of the university using renewable energy systems by designing a unique PV based EV fast-charging station due to lack of  locations where EV owners can charge their vehicles. It will also introduce a cleaner form of energy that will help reduce the overall cost of the charger. The initial requirement of the project was to install 120 PV panels with a total capacity of 50 kW. Due to an increase in cost during the preparation phase of the project, this had to be reduced to 80 PV panels with a capacity of 33.6 kW.