The Alaska Energy Authority and FreeWire Technologies hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony on September 23 at AJ’s OldTown Steakhouse & Tavern in Homer to commemorate the commissioning of the first of nine EV fast-charging stations to be installed on a statewide network and the very first ultrafast EV charger in Alaska. The event in Homer kicked off the installation of nine EV stations to be installed along the road system connecting Homer to Fairbanks, the next of which would be installed within the next six to nine months.
AEA Executive Director Curtis Thayer explains the difference between fast EV charging stations and ultrafast EV charging stations:
“What you normally have is you’ll have a level 2 charger and then a fast charger. What’s kind of the next generation after that is the ultrafast chargers. It just happened that the vendor that AJ’s Steakhouse is working with, FreeWire, has what they call an ultrafast charger. They are going to be installing three along the corridor. The requirement that we had was that they’d be fast chargers, meaning you could charge within a full charge under an hour where the ultrafast chargers literally, for every ten minutes, will get you 100 miles. So it might take 20 to 30 minutes for those vehicles to fully charge. The technology is changing very rapidly.”
Thayer said there were some requirements for the stations to be installed in Alaska:
“That these chargers be rated to at least 22 below and, if you’re going to be near Fairbanks, it had to be rated to 40 below. We were trying to marry up those type of vendors with those site hosts because the site host is the owner of the property. They are hosting it. At the end of the day, it is going to be their fast charger. We did have that qualifier here in Alaska. We have electric chargers, there’s electric chargers all throughout Canada. So the technology is there for cold weather. As a matter of fact, we’re looking at our next deployment area being Tok, Glennallen and Delta Junction on the highway system, again, but there’s chargers that can handle 40 below and some of them have heating units within them.”
Thayer says next phase would have the AEA look at EV charging stations along the Alaska Marine Highway System route and locations that would include Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka, Yakutat, Cordova, Kodiak, and even in rural Alaska.
Next up on the list of locations, on the Kenai Peninsula, to see the installation of EV charging stations is Custom Seafood Processors in Soldotna and Grizzly Ridge Lodge in Cooper Landing.